Newey: claim that F1 improves road car product just marketing

Adrian Newey - Red Bull

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Design guru Adrian Newey has discarded F1 manufacturers' statements that hybrid technology will trickle down to their road car products, labeling the claims as 'marketing blurb'.

In an interview with Sky Sports F1, the Red Bull designer was asked whether Grand Prix racing was a technical showcase for manufacturers or simply a spectacle involving man and machine.

"Depending on who you are, you are one way or the other," Newey answered.

" My personal view is that it should be a battle of drivers coupled with the creativeness of engineers. That means it shouldn't purely be a battle of resources, which is what it has tended to become on the engineers' side.

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Newey explained however that creativity could be brought to the forefront of engineering and coupled with a restriction on resources, such as a ban on windtunnels.

"It would be entirely possible to come up with a set of regulations that would reward creativity more than simply the number of people.

"A budget cap is very difficult to implement but you could come up with resource restrictions, certainly on the chassis side most of which aerodynamic driven.

"You could restrict research resources much more heavily than we do, perhaps scrap wind tunnels altogether, be much more restricted on the CFD runs, and if you restrict the resources there wouldn't be no point having so many engineers because they couldn't feed it through the funnel.

But at the end of the day, the Red Bull engineer does not subscribe to the idea that F1 technology, mainly with regard to power units, correlates directly with a manufacturers road cars.

"On the engine side, my personal opinion, which I'm sure will be a very controversial one, is that all this blurb which a few manufacturers would like to put out, that it improves their road car product, if that is the case then those manufacturers in the future, five years at the most, should be demonstrably ahead in the automotive sector of their rivals.

"Somehow l suspect that will not be the case, which tends to say it is marketing blurb."

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Phillip van Osten

Motor racing was a backdrop from the outset in Phillip van Osten's life. Born in Southern California, Phillip grew up with the sights and sounds of fast cars thanks to his father, Dick van Osten, an editor and writer for Auto Speed and Sport and Motor Trend. Phillip's passion for racing grew even more when his family moved to Europe and he became acquainted with the extraordinary world of Grand Prix racing. He was an early contributor to the monthly French F1i Magazine, often providing a historic or business perspective on Formula 1's affairs. In 2012, he co-authored along with fellow journalist Pierre Van Vliet the English-language adaptation of a limited edition book devoted to the great Belgian driver Jacky Ickx. He also authored "The American Legacy in Formula 1", a book which recounts the trials and tribulations of American drivers in Grand Prix racing. Phillip is also a commentator for Belgian broadcaster Be.TV for the US Indycar series.