EXCL: Current chief technical officer opens up on ‘huge regret’ after death of Ayrton Senna

Adrian Newey says he “completely messed up” the transition from active to passive suspension in 1994, making that year’s Williams “very, very difficult to drive.”

The current Red Bull chief technical officer was in the midst of another dominant period in his career when he led Williams’ design team in the early 1990s, but the 1994 season was marred by tragedy when three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna died at Imola after an accident at Tamburello, just one day after Roland Ratzenberger died at the same circuit.

Almost 30 years after that dark weekend, Newey confessed that the Williams that year was “aerodynamically unstable” due to massive regulation changes implemented to try to reel in the sport’s dominant force at the time, despite Senna’s “quite extraordinary” handling of the car.

Adrian Newey discusses ‘great sorrow’ of the 1994 Williams design.

Senna ended his long-standing association with McLaren to join Williams in their quest for a fourth title, with the team having supplanted McLaren as the sport’s best performers.

The innovation of active suspension played a significant role in this, but when it was outlawed, the Williams became a very different car to drive.

In the first instance, Newey, who had worked with seven previous World Champions over his illustrious career, explained on how Senna was different from the others.

“I mean, it was obviously a very short relationship unfortunately,” Newey told Formula 1’s Beyond the Grid podcast when asked about working with the Brazilian great.

“I suppose I’m not as bad as I used to be at this, but part of my competitive thing was that when you’re up against someone like Ayrton year after year, you kind of – not demonise him – but he’s kind of the enemy.”

“So I encountered him occasionally but never actually talked to him until he first came to the plant at the end of what must have been 1993.

“So [I was] introduced to him, and right away it was ‘Can I see the wind tunnel model?'” So we walked to the wind tunnel. Again, he’s down on his knees, peering underneath the car, eager to explain what we’d done differently, what made this car different from the previous year’s car, why we’d done this, and so on. He was quite inquisitive.

“One could argue that he did not need to know that. But for him, he just wanted all of the information he could get because it might come in handy later.

“I think probably more than any other driver that I’ve been involved with, that I would say is what I found unique about him.”

Reflecting on the 1994 season in particular, Newey admitted that the return to passive suspension had a negative impact on the car’s driveability, something he would have modified in retrospect.

“The ’94 cars, one of my huge regrets, regardless of what was the cause of the accident at Imola, the one thing you could definitely say about the car is it was aerodynamically unstable,” said Newey.

“We’d had active suspension for two years, and it’s my fault; I absolutely messed up the aerodynamics of switching back to passive suspension and the much wider ride height range that that requires.

“It was a very tough car to drive, and the bumpier the track, the worse it got. And, of course, Imola was a bumpy circuit, so what he did with that vehicle was fairly remarkable, and he was able to do so in qualifying.

“In Brazil, he was able to carry it but spun at the final corner toward the finish of the race, resulting in that performance.

“Damon [Hill] didn’t try to get that level of performance out of it, so he finished the race while knowing it was unstable.

“Ayrton had self-confidence and assurance in his car control, therefore he would always try it. His driving handling and attention were very amazing.”

Given the seismic impact and aftershock the deaths of Senna and Ratzenberger had on the sport, Newey confessed Williams were a “shattered team” following Senna’s accident.

So much so that he considered leaving the sport entirely.

“I thought about it, and I have to say, you’d be a fool or there would be something wrong if you didn’t question yourself and what you’re doing,” Newey said when asked if he pondered leaving Formula One after Senna’s death.

“First and foremost, it would have been rather selfish because if Patrick [Head, Williams engineering director] or I, or both of us, had decided to go, we would have left the team in complete disarray.

“Like all mistakes, regardless of what did cause the accident, you have to learn from the possibilities of what might have caused the accident and make sure that you react to that, and make sure that you try to take appropriate measures to stop that ever happening again.”