Formula 1 is often described as the perfect match between man and machine. The people who make the car are just as important as the people who drive the car. There’s currently a war going on for the best engineers in the sport, and something just happened at McLaren that opens up an entirely new front in this war.
Usually when we’re talking about Formula 1, we focus on the drivers. And that makes sense, considering they’re the people we see on the grid. But there is a massive ecosystem of engineers behind them that all help create that car. And right now, all the teams are making big strides in attempts to get the best of the best into their garage.
Everybody loves Adrian Newey
Most of us are familiar with Adrian Newey, the mastermind behind Red Bull’s insanely successful cars. He designed the cars that won Sebastian Vettel four championships in a row, as well as the ones that won Red Bull 33 out of the past 36 races. Before joining Red Bull, Newey had worked with McLaren and Williams during their glory days in the 90’s. Newey’s cars have won a total of 25 titles over the past thirty years.
It’s no wonder then that Aston Martin apparently tried to buy Newey out. Reports recently emerged that Lawrence Stroll put down a massive amount of money to get Newey on board. It wouldn’t be the first time Aston brought over a big-brained engineer from the competition: their amazing start to 2023 is broadly attributed to Dan Fallows and Eric Blandlin, who came over from Red Bull and Mercedes respectively. Getting Newey on board would be the next big achievement for the highly ambitious Aston Martin.
Adrian Newey with some of his world champions. Top to bottom, left to right: Alain Prost (1993), Max Verstappen (2021-2023), Sebastian Vettel (2010-2013), Mika Hakkinen (1998-1999), Damon Hill (1996).
Scramble for engineers in the ambitious midfield
Aston Martin isn’t the only team making big steps in the technical department. Williams is quickly gathering the talent they need to bring the team back to their glory days. The first step was announcing James Vowles as their new principal back at the start of 2023. Vowles was the head of strategy at Mercedes when they dominated the sport. He wasn’t the only big name announced though: Pat Fry, who has over 30 years of experience in F1, left Alpine amidst their managerial struggles last summer and joined Williams as well.
Seeing their main rival bring in such big names, Racing Bulls decided that they couldn’t be left behind. Alan Permane was another person to leave Alpine last summer, so he was quickly snatched up by Racing Bulls for this year. Permane had almost four decades of experience at the Enstone team, dating back to when Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher won their championships with the team. Alongside him, Racing Bulls brought on Tim Goss, the former head of the single seater commission at the FIA. They both now work for new team principal Laurent Mekies, who used to be second in command at Ferrari for years.
McLaren was good to go
Meanwhile, over at McLaren, they had it all figured out. Last year they kicked out their technical director James Key, after his ideas led to the very disappointing start to the season. Key immediately was announced as the technical director for Sauber. With his position now vacant, McLaren set up a new organization with three people in charge of technical stuff. Number one of three was Peter Prodromou, who was in charge of aerodynamics. Second is Rob Marshall, former right-hand man of Adrian Newey at Red Bull. Marshall was in charge of engineering. And lastly there is David Sanchez, the man who designed Ferrari’s 2022 challenger which saw Charles Leclerc lead the championship for a while.
Now however, only three months after this new structure began, Sanchez has left McLaren already. Reading between the lines, it becomes clear that Sanchez expected to have a bigger role than McLaren was willing to give him. Sanchez was in charge of vehicle concept and performance, two things that improved massively at McLaren since he was put in charge.
David Sanchez, the man whose departure created a vital job opening at McLaren.
This means two things. 1: A very talented and experienced vehicle designer is back on the market. And 2: McLaren is looking for a new person to lead the development of their current and future cars.
Can we see Newey go to McLaren?
In terms of Sanchez, that probably means that all the teams we’ve mentioned so far will be gunning for him. Racing Bulls, Aston Martin, Williams, and maybe also Sauber and Ferrari, will be looking to bring him on board to complete their technical staff. With the development of the next generation of F1 cars coming up soon, they will all be gunning for the best possible designer for that car.
But there is of course a better designer still around, and that’s Newey. With the instability going on at Red Bull, Newey might just be convinced to find a new team to challenge him. We see that Aston Martin feels emboldened enough to make a go for it. Maybe McLaren sees the same opportunity. All in all, it would be pretty amazing to see what Newey could do with a team that has already shown great potential these past twelve months.