Now an ambassador for Aston Martin F1, Pedro de la Rosa worked with Adrian Newey when he was at McLaren. He remembers an engineer who was very interested in driver feedback, in order to cross-reference these comments with on-track data.
“What really impressed me about Adrian when I started at McLaren was his involvement in the racing team, the questions he asked the drivers about the balance and the handling of the car” explained the Spaniard.
“He was very interested in the questions and debriefings with the drivers. This is something that surprised me, because normally technical directors do not participate in the debriefing of qualifying or practice with the drivers.”
“I was the third driver in 2005 so we were lucky enough to run three cars on Friday. I remember in Australia, in the first race of the season, we were there with the MP4-20. “
“I took part in FP1 and he asked me all kinds of questions about entering turn 1, the steering angle, the degree of blocking in turn 1 and what was stopping me from going further quickly around this corner.”
“He was very attentive to the details of the car’s handling and balance, but he always asked me ‘what’s stopping you from going faster?’ Then he would go into the wind tunnel.”
“He was looking for solutions and in the next race he was saying ‘do you remember what you said to me in turn 1 in Australia? We brought this new front wing so you can go faster’. He took the pilot’s comments into account, and he applied what he saw to the data.”
“He relied on the data, listened to the pilot and immediately looked for solutions and provided them because, at the end of the day, we all understand the problems. The difference between us is who can provide solutions and who cannot not.”
“Adrian is the type of person who listens, he listens more than he talks, but he always comes up with solutions. Sometimes solutions work, sometimes they don’t. In general, they tend to work more than with other people. It’s a fantastic asset.”
Also, de la Rosa is convinced that Newey, who will join Aston Martin next year, will be a leader for the team’s engineers, who will be inspired by him and who will work under him.
“Adrian inspired me, but his power is really an inspiration to the new generation of engineers who are currently working in our factory and who are nurturing good talent, because people like Adrian are very good at detecting talents, detect engineers who are at his level.”
“It will be a pleasure to see him develop within our team and allow young talents to develop as well. It is a fantastic moment in the history of a team to be able to see how all these new generations will benefit from Adrian.”
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