Everyone knows Adrian Newey’s great successes before his move to Aston Martin. The British engineer first took Williams to the top, then made McLaren win and finally took Red Bull to the top. But what many don’t know is that Newey’s beginnings were somewhat more murky.
Was a fourth stage of Adrian Newey’s Formula 1 career, and it was called Leyton HouseA sleazy team led by a Japanese billionaire who fired Newey for focusing too much on aerodynamics and vetoing Porsche engines, eventually ending up in prison along with all his partners.
Leyton House, the team that fired Adrian Newey for not wanting Porsche engines
Before tasting the glory of Formula 1 with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, Adrian Newey had to wade through the mud of Formula 1. His first steps as a technical director in the big circus were in the late 1980s with The March team, a historic garage that has fallen on hard times whom Newey managed to take to the podiums again and even make them lead some races.
At that time March’s sponsor was already Leyton Housea brand without a very specific purpose: they sold clothes, travel or hair dye. Behind the empire was Akira Akagi, a Japanese multimillionaire who saw in those March catwalks the perfect showcase to take a further step in the global dissemination of his brand.
So Akagi bought March and turned it into Leyton House for the 1990 season. Technically it was the same team under a different name, and Adrian Newey was still in his role as manager, tinkering with the flow of air, oblivious to the mantra of the time that “aerodynamics is for those who don’t know how to make engines”.
Newey was already doing some tricks with aerodynamics. The cockpit of the car was so narrow that the drivers complained that they couldn’t even change gear (at that time it was still done with a lever), but Newey insisted on making it smaller and smaller to improve airflow through the bottom.
But after the relative successes with March, the arrival of Leyton House was becoming difficult for Newey. The results were dismal, the car sometimes did not even qualify for races and nothing Newey came up with worked. “I tried to simplify everything, even losing downforce, but it didn’t work”the genius recounted years later in his book.
Meanwhile, Leyton House was falling apart. Ian Phillips, the team boss, had contracted meningitis, so it was the financial director, someone with no idea of racing, who took over. Meanwhile, Akagi, the owner, desperate at the poor results, was in talks with Porsche to use its engines.
The problem was that it was just two old turbo TAGs joined together. “I quickly realized that there was no way that engine was going to work, but Akagi wanted to keep it simply because of the prestige of the Porsche brand“Newey recounted in his book. The British engineer wanted to build a less pompous but more useful Ilmor.
Meanwhile, Newey discovered why his ideas didn’t work: Leyton House wind tunnel was poorly calibratedto put it euphemistically. The reality was that they were using wooden blocks and tape to secure the model in the tunnel, so the data came out completely distorted.
The faults having been corrected, Newey hastily put together a package of improvements to be ready in time for the French Grand Prix, and also managed to secure a deal for Leyton House to supply the Ilmor engines for the following season. In parallel, Newey had received an offer from Williams on which I was meditating.
But there was no need to think too hard. When Newey arrived at Leyton House to meet Akagi and tell him about Williams’ offer, he was met with a surprise: “I was fired!”Newey’s obsession with aerodynamics was not only preventing them from improving, it had led to them losing a Porsche engine, according to the owner.
So Newey packed up, left for Williams and the rest is Formula 1 history. But… What happened to that package of improvements that Newey had prepared? Leyton House had no problem using it for the French Grand Prix, even though Newey was already out of the team. And the result was surprising.
On lap 53, the two Leyton Houses were leading the French Grand Prix without having made a single pit stop, as the new car barely degraded the tyres. Mauricio Gugelmin was left stranded by the engine a few laps later, but Ivan Capelli reached the finish line in second positiononly surpassed by Alain Prost’s Ferrari and without stopping in the pits.
Of course, Leyton House could not benefit much from the legacy that Newey had left them, because shortly afterwards Akira Akagi and three other partners were arrested for the largest bank fraud in Japan’s historyThey were sentenced to five years in prison and the Leyton House Formula 1 team was sold, almost given away, back to March.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
