{"id":202049,"date":"2025-06-21T08:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T08:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/202049\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T08:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T08:16:10","slug":"wild-adrian-newey-request-revealed-by-former-red-bull-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/202049\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Adrian Newey request revealed by former Red Bull driver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Doornbos, a former Red Bull test driver, revealed that Adrian Newey once asked him to trial driving with one foot above the other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Branding it a \u201cjust not doable\u201d request, Doornbos tried it anyway, and the results were locked away in Newey\u2019s trusty notebook.<\/p>\n

Adrian Newey would enjoy to \u2018exchange the driver for a computer\u2019<\/p>\n

Already with Williams and McLaren title success on his CV, Newey joined forces with Red Bull<\/a> in 2006 and played a key role in the team\u2019s rise to F1\u2019s summit, a total of 14 World Championships won \u2013 eight Drivers\u2019 and six Constructors\u2019 \u2013 in Red Bull machinery designed under Newey\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

Robert Doornbos was with Red Bull in the early days of Newey\u2019s time there, spending much of the 2006 season as their test driver, before stepping up to a race seat for the final three rounds of the season. He would return to the Red Bull test driver role for the 2007 season.<\/p>\n

And as Doornbos lifted the lid on life back then as an F1 test driver, he revealed that Newey once asked him to trial driving with his feet above each other for aerodynamics purposes, a wacky request which \u201cjust shows the way he thinks outside of the box\u201d, and Doornbos gave it a go.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a test driver, you feel like a test dummy,\u201d said Doornbos on the Pit Talk podcast<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you have to test everything, the life of wings, the flexibility, if they will just destroy at the end of the straight because there\u2019s too much load of them, and then you end up in the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Okay Robert, thank you, we\u2019re not going to use this wing. On to the next.\u2019 That\u2019s what you do as a test driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a day that Adrian said, \u2018What do you think of driving with your feet above each other?\u2019 So to get the aerodynamics more\u2026 Can you imagine? That\u2019s just not doable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it shows the way he thinks outside of the box.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we tested it and he came back into the pit lane and he just wrote something on his notebook, and I said: \u2018What are you writing down there?\u2019 He said: \u2018Well, I\u2019m going to change something in the car.\u2019 I said: \u2018What is it?\u2019 \u2018It\u2019s between the engine and the steering wheel.\u2019 I said: \u2018That\u2019s me!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it just shows that he\u2019s so intelligent. He, if he could exchange the driver for a computer, he would also enjoy that.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Adrian Newey<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Ranked: The top 10 most successful Adrian Newey Formula 1 car designs<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Adrian Newey: All you need to know about his sensational Aston Martin move<\/a><\/p>\n

Doornbos\u2019 reveal is interesting, as F1 analyst Peter Windsor said he previously approached Newey over a suggestion that the next Leyton House car \u2013 one which did not arrive due to the team\u2019s financial demise \u2013 would be designed by Newey with an even narrower nose thanks to having the pedals and, therefore the driver\u2019s legs, on top of, rather than to the side of each other.<\/p>\n

And it was something which Newey apparently denied was ever coming to Formula 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdrian Newey [was] supposedly contemplating that the next Leyton House, had the team not gone bust, would have had the drivers legs on the top of one another to have an even narrower nose to the car,\u201d said Windsor in a YouTube livestream.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccelerator on the top, brake down below it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I asked Adrian about that and he was sort of, \u2018Oh, no\u2019. I suspect he probably did want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Newey announced his departure from Red Bull in 2024, he signed with Aston Martin in the newly-created managing technical partner role, while he also became a shareholder in the team, with his first key task being the major chassis and engine regulation changes coming for F1 2026.<\/p>\n

Read next: How Sergio Perez cost Nico Hulkenberg a Red Bull seat alongside Verstappen<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Doornbos, a former Red Bull test driver, revealed that Adrian Newey once asked him to trial driving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[9257,4199,707,4200,225,12,226,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-202049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-adrian-newey","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-red-bull","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114720367143682736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}