Formula One’s most epic battle

Posted by Mikel on January 27th, 2012 at 11:56am

When Formula One fans think of classic battles over the years, they usually recall names such as Senna vs. Prost or Hunt vs. Lauda and perhaps even Mansell vs. Piquet. Those names are rightly justified when considering such great battles in F1 and some fans may even show their passion for teams instead of drivers offering names such as Ferrari vs. McLaren or Williams Vs. Everyone.

Whether it be drivers or teams, you cannot fault the F1 fan for immediately gravitating to the highest profile battles in the sports history. What you may not find is the epic battles that are less publicized. The battles that are more germane to the biggest driver and team battles in history. I speak, of course, of the battle of Engineer vs. Engineer.

The sport of Formula One is littered with battles of the mind from the dawn of time and no discussion can leave out some of the sports greatest thinkers but when you boil the issue down, two men come to the forefront of the struggle between pen, paper and fabrication. That battle is…

Adrian Newey vs. Rory Byrne.

Adrian Newey is the most successful designer in F1’s history with eight (8) constructor’s titles. Rory Byrne was the most successful designer in F1 with 7 titles but was eclipsed by Newey in 2011 with their World Constructor’s title win at Red Bull.

Newey’s title-winning cars are:

The Williams cars:

1992- FW14B

1993- FW15C

1994- FW16

1996- FW18

1997- FW19

The McLaren Car:

1998- MP4/13

The Red Bull Cars:

2010- RB6

2011- RB7

 

Rory Byrnes title-winning cars are:

The Benetton cars:

1995- B195

The Ferrari cars:

1999- F399

2000- F1-2000

2001- F2001

2002- F2002

2003- F2003GA

2004- F2004

The beginnings:

Newey was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England and attended the University of Southampton where he attained a First Class honours degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1980. Byrne was born in Pretoria, South Africa and attended Witwatersrand University and began working as a chemist after graduation in 1965.

Newey graduated and went straight to work in racing with the March team. His first project was the March GTP sports car and it won the IMSA GTP title two years running. Byrne, on the other hand, left his chemist job and joined his friends in opening a performance car parts shop. During this period in his life, he started to design race cars with his first Formula Ford racer.

Byrne’s big break didn’t come until an introduction to Ted Toleman in 1977. Working for Toleman, Byrne began making a name for himself winning two races with the Toleman Formula 2 team and this success allowed for the jump to Formula 1.

Newey joined the March Indycar project in 1983. In 1984 Newey’s design took seven victories including the prestigious Indy 500. The following year Newey’s car won the CART title with Al Unser at the wheel. Bobby Rahal won the tile in 1986 in Newey’s car and would form a relationship that would later play a big role in both men’s lives in 2001.

Newey left CART and returned to March, after a brief stint at FORCE, and was fired in 1990 after the team became Leyton House and faltered. Byrne was in the heat of designing a car for Toleman in which Ayrton Senna would drive and almost win at Monaco.

Toleman’s progress was noticed and the Benetton family decided they’d like to get into F1 and so Byrne set about designing his first Benetton car and eventually won in 1986 with driver Gerhard Berger in Mexico. Newey was busy with his own career as he quickly was hired at Williams F1 which was then a top-running team.

The 1990′s:

The 1990’s came and Newey’s domination started to show. Teamed with another legendary designer, Patrick Head, Newey’s 1991 Williams FW14 was a clear shot across the bow of the then dominant McLaren. The Newey/Head combination went on to win the 1992, 1993 and 1994 titles. Then Rory Byrne came roaring back!

In 1991 Byrne had briefly left Benetton for the failed Reynard F1 project but he came back to the team in the fall of that year. When he returned, team boss Flavio Briatore was in full control and a young, talented driver named Michael Schumacher was at the wheel. Byrne promptly designed a car that was immediately noticed as the car to beat in 1994.

Byrne’s work at Benetton in was overshadowed by allegations of cheating and some suggested that Newey had missed the mark with their car in 1994 allowing Benetton to surge but Williams F1 fought back and took the constructor’s title that year. They would not repeat that feat in 1995 as Byrne and Schumacher stole the show winning both titles.

By the late 1990’s Newey stood firmly on top of a record of 6 titles and 67 wins but as Newey’s era seemed to be waning, Byrne’s wave of victories was waxing in epic proportions.  While Newey had engineered those 6 titles and 67 wins, he would only manage 15 wins and no titles over the next 15 years such was Byrne’s dominance.

The South African designer would engineer one of the most dominant eras ever seen in F1 history after moving to Ferrari with Michael Schumacher and Benetton team boss Ross Brawn. The team won 6 tiles with 5 of those in successive years from 2000-2004.

From 1992-2004 Byrne engineered 7 titles for Michael Schumacher while Adrian Newey engineered 6 titles for the likes of Mansell, Prost, Hill, Villeneuve and Häkkinen. Newey is the only man to have won titles with three different teams in F1.

Newey’s recent 2-title performance in 2010 and 2011 with Red Bull Racing is only setting the stage for what could become another Byrne/Ferrari-like domination. Although he joined Red Bull Racing in 2006, he nearly joined in 2001 when his old friend Bobby Rahal had signed him to contract with the team which was then known as Jaguar Racing. Newey reneged and stayed at McLaren and this ultimately put the nail in Rahal’s coffin as team boss at the Jaguar team.

Newey has put his stamp on F1 as the most successful engineer in history and no one can marginalize the impact of his efforts. Newey has had his moments and has pushed the limits of the car which some critics suggest he has compromised the durability of the car by pushing the limits too far. McLaren’s MP4/18 was still-born and never raced after major issues were discovered in pre-season testing.

If you consider the drama on track from 1980-2011, you can name a lot of terrific driver and team battles but if we’re honest, none of that would have happened with the scope and amazement had these two men not been pitting their minds against each other for those 30 amazing years. There have been other successful, brilliant designers who deserve major praise but Byrne and Newey will be forever remembered as the two men who pushed F1 to new limits and gave us some of the most incredible battles the sport has ever seen.

Newey is still at Red Bull and perhaps Byrne’s consulting input will be felt in a resurgent Ferrari for 2012…at least that’s what we can hope for because no F1 fans truly wants this battle of Newey vs. Byrne to end any time soon.

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