'What if you drove with one foot on top of the other?': Former F1 driver talks about the Newey method

Requests "simply unfeasible", here is the daily life of Robert Doornbos alongside Adrian Newey. Poached by Aston Martin on the sidelines of the new 2026 regulations, the Briton began his adventure with Red Bull twenty years earlier, at the same time as the former test and simulator pilot.

After having worked for the success of Williams et McLarenAdrian Newey had the difficult task of supporting a fledgling team. A significant undertaking, but one that gave the engineer the opportunity to test all kinds of hypotheses, free from the constraints of the championship battle.

“One day Adrian asked me, 'What would it be like if you drove with one foot on top of the other?' for aerodynamic reasons., says the Dutchman. It shows how he doesn't think like other people." An improbable reasoning but the reason for the success of his innovations.

"Sometimes you feel a bit like a crash test dummy."

Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, it took Adrian Newey several years to bring Red Bull to the track record it has today. Years spent patiently waiting for the simulator drivers in these gestational seasons.

“As a test driver, you sometimes feel a bit like a crash test dummy., entrusts Robert Doornbos. You have to test everything: the strength of the fins, their flexibility, whether they're just going to be destroyed by the pressure at the end of the straight, while you end up in the wall. Then they'd say to me, 'Thanks, Robert, we won't use this fin, we'll move on to the next one.' That was the job."

Robert Doornbos would be a starter in the last three Grands Prix of 2006, replacing Christian Klien. Unable to keep his seat for the following season, he had several short-lived adventures in motorsport before co-founding a brand of... connected sex toys in 2013! The height of irony for a driver accustomed to innovation...

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