The time Adrian Newey was snubbed
It may seem unbelievable today, but even someone of Adrian Newey’s caliber, who has won 12 Constructors’ Championships and 13 Drivers’ Championships during his long career in Formula 1 and has now left Red Bull to join Aston Martin, received a rejection at one point.
This incident dates back to 1982, when a young Newey, who had not yet begun his career as a designer, started to take his first steps in motorsport with March in European Formula 2 as a track engineer for Johnny Ceccotto, a legendary Venezuelan driver.
At this point, Christian Danner enters the picture. The German driver never displayed particularly enviable qualities behind the wheel, but he proved competitive enough to race in 46 Formula 1 events, even without any standout performances.
Still in 1982, Christian Danner, who had just completed a mediocre first season with March in Formula 2, found himself paired with Adrian Newey as his track engineer, albeit for just one race.
“I’m the only person in the motorsport world who said I didn’t want to work with Adrian Newey, which is a rather unfortunate privilege,” joked the former driver in a recent interview with Formula Scout.
“Both Adrian and I still laugh about it. A guy [Manfred Cassani] came to me and said, ‘I have a BMW M1 Procar and an F2 team; why don’t you come with me, and I’ll make you a Formula 1 driver?’ I did five or six races with that M1, a test in an F2 race at the Nürburgring, and a hill climb with the F2 car. Having never had confidence issues, I knew I had no idea how to drive single-seaters, so they sent me to Goodwood for a test, and I was fast.” – he explained.
“The problem was that my teammates were the first and second place drivers in the European Formula 3 Championship, Corrado Fabi and Thierry Boutsen. They taught me that driving a single-seater is not that easy. It took me the 1981 season to improve my situation.”
Continuing with his story, Christian Danner revealed that he requested Newey’s removal and for Ralph Bellamy to replace him: “I didn’t want to work with him, so I told him, ‘Adrian, you have no experience, I have no experience, this isn’t going to work.’”
“He was very unfocused. Once, he forgot to disconnect the radio and didn’t know what was happening with fuel consumption. He was just a young designer. So, I ended up with Ralph managing my car and Adrian with Cecotto. In the end, I won the championship along with Cecotto and Fabi.” – the former Formula 1 driver concluded.
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