What next for Adrian Newey? Jeremy Clarkson’s schoolmate turned genius behind Red Bull

Most of the headlines in Formula One motor racing are generated by the drivers – winning races, swapping teams or sounding off about their rivals or their latest hobby or girlfriend.

But now, almost 30 years to the day after he was deeply involved in the sport’s greatest modern tragedy, a British figure from its shadows has been catapulted into the limelight.

Adrian Newey, 65, is revered in racing. As a designer he has been dubbed “The Wind Whisperer” for aerodynamic skills which have propelled multiple teams to victory, including current world champions Red Bull. Today, however, it has been widely reported that he has told Red Bull that he “wants to move on”, possibly unsettled by the off-track controversy engulfing the team and its principal, Christian Horner.

Only once has he previously come to the attention of a public beyond F1 fans, in connection with the death of the superstar driver Ayrton Senna almost exactly three decades ago.

The Brazilian multiple world champion died on May 1 1994 as a result of a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in a Williams car designed in part by Newey, who was then a young man still establishing his reputation. “People ask me if I feel guilty about Ayrton. I do,” Newey wrote in his autobiography. “I was one of the senior officers in a team that designed a car in which a great man was killed.”

Newey, along with other Williams team members, was prosecuted in Italy after the crash and eventually acquitted. But it was a lengthy and worrying process, and the traumatic events of that day stayed with him for many years. “I’ve had one driver die in a car I’ve designed,” Newey wrote. “Ayrton. That fact weighs heavily upon me.”

The designer was born on Boxing Day 1958 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His father was a vet and his mother had driven ambulances during the Second World War. He was educated at Repton public school, where a fellow pupil was the Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson; but Newey was asked to leave following an incident at a school concert in which he adjusted the sound system’s amplification levels drastically upwards, with shattering results for ancient stained glass windows.

He moved on, via a technical college, to Southampton University, where he gained a first class degree in aeronautics, and very soon afterwards he was working with one of the lesser Formula One teams.

He didn’t stay at the back of the grid for long, moving first to March, then Williams, where despite the tragedy of Senna’s death he contributed to multiple race victories and world championships. Newey headed on in 1997 to further glory at McLaren, and joined Red Bull in 2006. In all, so far, he has designed cars that have won a combined total of 25 drivers’ and constructors’ world championships, and more than 200 individual grands prix.

Those numbers seem sure to tick upwards again this year, when Red Bull has been dominant on the track. Off it, however, the team has been riven by controversy surrounding its principal, Christian Horner, who was accused earlier this year of controlling and coercive behaviour by a female employee.

He strongly denied the allegations with the employee’s grievance case dismissed following an internal investigation carried out by a specialist barrister. The woman in question has appealed that finding, with an employment tribunal likely to follow should her appeal prove unsuccessful.

This has distracted from the extraordinary achievements of Newey and his design team, whose latest creation, the Red Bull RB20, has seemed all but unstoppable in the hands of reigning world champion Max Verstappen.

While Verstappen employs his brainchild to devastating effect on the track, Newey plays a less prominent role in public; though often present at race weekends he is mostly to be seen in the background, a close-cropped and stubbly figure prowling the starting grid with a clipboard in hand, always alert for the slightest design tweak on rivals’ cars, or perched among the technicians on the pitwall during the race, murmuring tactical advice into his headset microphone.

If the drivers and Horner, who is married to the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, may seem more glamorous, Newey is no bloodless technocrat. He not only enjoys designing fast cars, he enjoys driving and racing them.

In the heat of competition he has caused very expensive levels of damage to two classic sports cars, a Ford GT40 at the Le Mans Classic and a Jaguar E-Type at the Goodwood Revival meeting. He suffered no more than a cut finger in the incidents, though he was briefly hospitalised after a crash in a sports car race at Snetterton in 2010.

Nor does he restrict himself to such gentlemanly vehicles as classic sports cars – he has competed creditably against professional drivers in contemporary sports cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and demonstrated with gusto one of his own high-technology Formula One creations, the Red Bull RB5, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Newey has been married three times and has four children. Harrison, his son by his second wife Marigold, has competed in single seaters and sportscars without ever ascending to the highest levels of the sport.

As his 70s loom on the horizon, Newey might be forgiven for wanting to spend more time with his family – and his car collection. But the lure of another challenge may prove too tempting. Perhaps at Ferrari, Formula One’s most celebrated team, where the budgets and the adulation of the Italian public are equally limitless. After all, Newey is said to earn around £15 million a year at Red Bull, more than all but the finest drivers on the Formula One grid.

Aston Martin, a British-based team with a great heritage hungry for the contemporary achievement to match it, may be another suitor. Like Ferrari, it also has a stable of road cars that might benefit from Newey’s input. For though wind-tunnels and computerised analysis are now standard across the sport, it is Newey’s vision that, decade after decade, has given teams an edge.

There is no doubt of the high regard in which he is held. “I think Adrian’s a unicorn,” Aston Martin’s owner, the billionaire Lawrence Stroll, declared. “He’s very special, maybe exists once.”