Adrian Newey is offended at the idea that Team Red Bull has cheated on the way to winning three consecutive driver and constructor championships.
Red Bull’s Adrian Newey: ‘Our car was legal and we won races with it.’
In a recent documentary, Team Red Bull’s key personalities celebrate three-consecutive F1 championships and reflect on the most important moments in team history. The film also addresses concerns from rival organizations that Red Bull went beyond the limits of the FIA rulebook. That’s not true, according to the team’s chief engineer, Adrian Newey.
In a 30-minute documentary produced by Red Bull, the team’s chief designer defended the team's aggressive approach to engineering, especially those steps taken once new regulations took effect in 2009.
The team has been the center of several controversies over the past two seasons, most notably with its blown diffuser technology last season and a questionable hole in the floor ahead of the rear wheels at Monaco in May. Both innovations were allowed at the time but later outlawed in future FIA sporting clarifications. The team was also forced to alter its engine maps following the Grand Prix of Hungary.
Newey believes that criticism from rival teams is unwarranted because his cars were always legal.
"The level of sniping at us just got silly, to be honest," Newey said in the film. "It seemed like every race we were accused of doing something illegal. The car, of course, was using the regulations to the edge -- to me, that is what you should do in Formula 1.
"There is no such thing as the ‘spirit’ of the regulations, it's the black and white of, ‘You can't do this, you can do that.’ We took the ‘can do’ bits right to the edge. The bottom line was that our car was legal and we won races with it."
Newey is perhaps the most accomplished engineer in open-wheel history, having won championships for three different Formula 1 teams in Red Bull, McLaren and Williams. Prior to that, he designed championship-winning cars in CART for Al Unser and Bobby Rahal. Newey and Rahal also teamed-up to win the 1986 Indianapolis 500.
The documentary was produced by the Red Bull Energy Drink Company and focuses on the team's success since entering the sport in 2005. The complete film can be watched in its entirety below.
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