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Perhaps the real geniuses are the 3 engineers who take the cocktail napkins and make them fit on a car. The giant lego set of 15,000 pieces that is a F1 car is

Perhaps the real geniuses are the 3 engineers who take the cocktail napkins and make them fit on a car. The giant lego set of 15,000 pieces that is a F1 car is too great for any one person and a pen and paper to take all the credit for. In a way I feel like the 3 engineers should really have gotten a shout out somewhere in the puff piece.

RC_ITR 4y ago
This is the classic 'who is smarter: architects or engineers' argument and I don't suggest you try to solve it on a forum full of software architects and engineers.
- blitzar 4y ago
  I think its important that both parties acknoledge they are dependant on each other. Either party claiming they are the one true god and the other party just feed off thier scraps has been the cause of many bad outcomes (and terrible f1 cars - a few of which carried the Newey name).
jack_pp 4y ago
They probably don't make the car from scratch every season. Pen and paper is perfectly fine for small tweaks and conceptual ideas for very specific parts
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  He does not work on the entire car anymore - it is too much work - think he provides overall direction to be followed (high rake/low rake) and then concentrates on the areas he can add value. Since he came from that era where ground effects played a role in F1 he probably focused on the bottom of the car this year (floor) hence they had less issues with bouncing than other teams. You will notice he attends most races - he sits on the pitwall.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    Pitwall is all for show ... Team boss Toto Wolff does not sit on the pit wall, instead preferring a seat in the garage at the central console overseeing operations
    - jonwachob91 4y ago
      Toto Wolff is also not an engineering or race oriented team boss, he's a finance guy. He lets the engineers and race experts do their thing while he does his thing.
    - VBprogrammer 4y ago
      I've no doubt the reason he is there is because he enjoys being at the races, not because of how it looks.
  - remus 4y ago
    > He does not work on the entire car anymore - it is too much work - think he provides overall direction to be followed (high rake/low rake) and then concentrates on the areas he can add value. This has been the way it goes for a long time now. The engineering teams that work on f1 cars are huge (though less so now with the cost caps that came in to effect this season) so no one knows every aspect of the car in full detail. Same as with any large engineering project really. What someone like Newey brings to the team is working out how the whole thing fits together, identifying the most productive areas of the car to work on (to find more speed) and troubleshooting issues with the car that come up through the season.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  F1 sometimes introduces new package of rules which totally invalidates last years design - this year they switched to 18" wheels from 13" with brake covers and also allowed ground areo effects to be used. Add new tyre compounds to the mix as well. Merc is not so dominant this years compared to last year because they got it wrong for their 2022 car while Red Bull and Ferrari was out of the gate competitive.
cptcobalt 4y ago
> the cocktail napkins This isn't a fair characterization — while I agree that one person isn't responsible for the whole assembly — Newey does have a gigantic drafting table in his office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VXJtrz1m9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VXJtrz1m9Y
- blitzar 4y ago
  Cocktail napkins have a great history of innovation. https://www.eandvgroup.com/the-cocktail-napkin-hall-of-fame/ https://www.eandvgroup.com/the-cocktail-napkin-hall-of-fame/
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    And per 21CFR (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=820 https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...), if you design part of a Medical Device on one, it must be signed and dated and recorded as part of the Design History File since it's now an Original Record :-)
JakDrako 4y ago
One of Aston Martin's aerodynamicist is ex-Red Bull... the "B" version of this year's Aston Martin looks extremely similar to the Red Bull car. Aston have yet to match the performance of RB; although Vettel has placed the new car higher in the points that the "A" version. They've announced many new parts for this weekend's race; we'll see if AM can close the gap to the top teams with a Newey-trained (?) aerodynamicist who's not Newey and (presumably) has no access to him.
- sjm-lbm 4y ago
  Peter Prodromou was one of those people working right under Newey during the 2010-2013 RBR run of success with Vettel, and he went to McLaren around 2014. His success there has been, well.. less than many would have hoped.

RC_ITR 4y ago

This is the classic 'who is smarter: architects or engineers' argument and I don't suggest you try to solve it on a forum full of software architects and engineers.

blitzar 4y ago
I think its important that both parties acknoledge they are dependant on each other. Either party claiming they are the one true god and the other party just feed off thier scraps has been the cause of many bad outcomes (and terrible f1 cars - a few of which carried the Newey name).

jack_pp 4y ago

They probably don't make the car from scratch every season. Pen and paper is perfectly fine for small tweaks and conceptual ideas for very specific parts

tibbydudeza 4y ago
He does not work on the entire car anymore - it is too much work - think he provides overall direction to be followed (high rake/low rake) and then concentrates on the areas he can add value. Since he came from that era where ground effects played a role in F1 he probably focused on the bottom of the car this year (floor) hence they had less issues with bouncing than other teams. You will notice he attends most races - he sits on the pitwall.
- blitzar 4y ago
  Pitwall is all for show ... Team boss Toto Wolff does not sit on the pit wall, instead preferring a seat in the garage at the central console overseeing operations
  - jonwachob91 4y ago
    Toto Wolff is also not an engineering or race oriented team boss, he's a finance guy. He lets the engineers and race experts do their thing while he does his thing.
  - VBprogrammer 4y ago
    I've no doubt the reason he is there is because he enjoys being at the races, not because of how it looks.
- remus 4y ago
  > He does not work on the entire car anymore - it is too much work - think he provides overall direction to be followed (high rake/low rake) and then concentrates on the areas he can add value. This has been the way it goes for a long time now. The engineering teams that work on f1 cars are huge (though less so now with the cost caps that came in to effect this season) so no one knows every aspect of the car in full detail. Same as with any large engineering project really. What someone like Newey brings to the team is working out how the whole thing fits together, identifying the most productive areas of the car to work on (to find more speed) and troubleshooting issues with the car that come up through the season.
tibbydudeza 4y ago
F1 sometimes introduces new package of rules which totally invalidates last years design - this year they switched to 18" wheels from 13" with brake covers and also allowed ground areo effects to be used. Add new tyre compounds to the mix as well. Merc is not so dominant this years compared to last year because they got it wrong for their 2022 car while Red Bull and Ferrari was out of the gate competitive.

cptcobalt 4y ago

> the cocktail napkins This isn't a fair characterization — while I agree that one person isn't responsible for the whole assembly — Newey does have a gigantic drafting table in his office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VXJtrz1m9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VXJtrz1m9Y

blitzar 4y ago
Cocktail napkins have a great history of innovation. https://www.eandvgroup.com/the-cocktail-napkin-hall-of-fame/ https://www.eandvgroup.com/the-cocktail-napkin-hall-of-fame/
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  And per 21CFR (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=820 https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...), if you design part of a Medical Device on one, it must be signed and dated and recorded as part of the Design History File since it's now an Original Record :-)

JakDrako 4y ago

One of Aston Martin's aerodynamicist is ex-Red Bull... the "B" version of this year's Aston Martin looks extremely similar to the Red Bull car. Aston have yet to match the performance of RB; although Vettel has placed the new car higher in the points that the "A" version. They've announced many new parts for this weekend's race; we'll see if AM can close the gap to the top teams with a Newey-trained (?) aerodynamicist who's not Newey and (presumably) has no access to him.

sjm-lbm 4y ago
Peter Prodromou was one of those people working right under Newey during the 2010-2013 RBR run of success with Vettel, and he went to McLaren around 2014. His success there has been, well.. less than many would have hoped.