Newey or Gascoyne likely to team up with Ainslie (2nd Update)
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| America's Cup Racing |
Adrian Newey could divert some of his time in 2015 to working on a design for Ben Ainslie to use in the 35th Americas Cup. The English engineer’s designs have won the last four Formula 1 World Championships and the he has been vocal about how he has found the technical regulations increasingly frustrating.
“If the regulations continue to become ever more restrictive we’ll eventually get the point where the car’s more or less designed by the rulebook," Newey complained shortly after the end of the 2013 season.
“You’ll then have, effectively, GP1 cars where the differentiators are the engine and the driver. For me, it’s not Formula 1. One of the big things that differentiates Formula 1 from almost all other sports, with perhaps the exception of the Americas Cup, is that combination of man and machine, you can have a great car with an average driver and you won’t win, a great driver with an average car you won’t win. It’s about both."
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| Marine Engineering Magazine |
Newey who attended the Americas Cup event when they were held in Valencia, has wanted for a long time to design a challenger for the ‘Auld Mug.’ “If you take motorsport as a global umbrella of competitive man and machine as a sport, where else is there where you have significant budget for the engineering side? The answer really is only in the Americas Cup" he enthuses when asked about it.
Whilst it is almost certain that he will not make a full time switch from cars to boats it does seem likely that he will be involved at least in a consultancy role. “There’s the potential for him perhaps to get involved, cast his eye over our design team and what we’re looking at doing" Ainslie admits.
It is worth noting that Newey is employed by Red Bull who were involved with the victorious Oracle Team USA boat last year and has a significant investment in sailing. However Ainslie is keen to put together a Team GB, whilst Red Bull is very Austrian.
Another F1 engineer looking to get involved in the Americas Cup is Mike Gascoyne of the Caterham Group, who could be a perfect fit with Ainslie. He has already re-engineered a Akilara RC3 racing yacht. "The boat is a standard construction but we put a lot of work into controlling weight and quality control so we believe we have the lightest and most structurally sound version built" he told Marine Engineering magazine.
11/04/13 (GMM) Adrian Newey has admitted he once came close to agreeing to work for Ferrari.
The future of the renowned Red Bull designer is currently the subject of hot speculation, amid news he met with Ben Ainslie in Abu Dhabi at the weekend.
British sailor Ainslie is putting together a British team for an America's Cup bid, and Newey has admitted he is interested in competitive yacht design.
"He (Newey) would be amazing," Ainslie told BBC radio 2, confirming that Newey's "design experience would be crucial".
For now, the 54-year-old is committed to helping Red Bull win a fifth consecutive world championship next year for the all-new turbo V6 rules.
10/31/13 (GMM) The Adrian Newey era at Red Bull could be nearing its end.
It emerged last weekend that, after four consecutive championship clean-sweeps with Sebastian Vettel, the eyes of the team's famous designer may be wandering elsewhere.
"Maybe the America's Cup, who knows?" said the 54-year-old Briton, admitting a new project could be on the horizon.
Now, the Mirror newspaper reports that Sir Ben Ainslie, the famous British sailor, is travelling to Abu Dhabi this weekend and will meet with Newey.
"Someone with his (Newey's) design and technical experience would be invaluable," said Ainslie.
Adrian Newey insists he is committed to winning more Formula 1 world championships with Red Bull after the team racked up its fourth consecutive title double.
Newey has previously voiced a desire not to spend his entire career in F1 and has also been a regular target of approaches from other teams. But he insists that the enjoyment he gets from working at Red Bull means he remains fully focused on his role as chief technical officer for the team.
"The joy of working with this team is to have been involved in taking it from the ashes of Jaguar to where we are today," he said. "Having achieved some success over the last few years, the enjoyment is really in working with my colleagues in Milton Keynes, continuing to develop the way we operate with Christian [Horner]. It has been a great ride.
"Next year is a huge challenge with the regulations so at the moment I'm fully focused on that."
Newey stressed that the scale of the challenge the team faces in 2014 cannot be underestimated. As well as the change in powertrain, there are also significant changes to the cars.
"Next year's regulation changes are very big," said Newey. "The aerodynamic changes are not quite as big as we had for 2009 but they are still very significant.