Newey finds it hard to shake off Senna memories

Adrian Newey has, at different times, been described as a genius, a rogue and the best engineer in Formula One history. He’s won it all and with so many different teams that getting him on board is often half the battle won. Red Bull’s superb run in the last two years is often attributed to him and not with just cause. But for all the success he’s had on the track, he still wakes up at night in cold sweat. The events from 17 years ago, when Ayrton Senna died in a car he designed, still haunt him. The Brazilian died and Newey, who was then with Williams, was charged with manslaughter. [caption id=“attachment_11185” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Red Bull Racing Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey is still haunted by the past. Getty Images / Mark Thompson”] [/caption] “Well, the little hair I had all fell out in the aftermath. So, it changed me physically. It was dreadful,” said Newey, the chief designer at Williams when Senna was killed in 1994, in an interview with the Guardian newspaper. “Both Patrick Head and myself separately asked ourselves whether we wanted to continue in racing. Did we want to be involved in a sport where people can die in something we’ve created? “Second, was the accident caused by something that broke through poor or negligent design? And then, the court case started.” He added: “The court case was a depressing annoyance, and extra pressure, but it did not make me question whether I wanted to be involved in F1. It’s the self-searching rather than the accusations that really matter.” Newey, however, insisted that during the days that followed he came close to quitting the sport. “Yes. For the whole team it was incredibly difficult. I remember the day after the race was a bank holiday, Monday, and some of us came in to try and trawl through the data and work out what happened. They were dark weeks.” The Red Bull tech chief admitted that he is not planning to watch the new Senna movie, as it would be too painful for him. “No. It would not be an easy thing to do.”