How to Build a Car. Adrian Newey

components they would be passed to the model-makers to make a model by hand. Nowadays almost all manufacturing is by computer-controlled machines; my hand drawings are scanned and then turned into 3D surfaces on our computer system.

      Then you go to the wind tunnel, test the parts, and the results will determine whether your ideas are any good or not.

      At Beatrice, however, I just wasn’t coming up with any brainwaves at all, good or bad. And for me, this was a disaster. I’m accustomed to having ideas all the time. On planes, in the loo, in the dead of night. They come thick and fast, sometimes at inopportune moments. And even if they’re not great, especially those dead-of-night ones where you wake up thinking you’ve cracked it and scribble something down that by morning looks absolute rubbish, the point is that at least you’re generating ideas, which is the first step in the process.

      Looking back, there were two reasons for this: first, the change of culture moving from March to Beatrice; second, I was exhausted. Often I find I am at my most creative when the pressure is on: pressure can, if managed, kick the old grey matter into a more creative and productive state. Sadly, the extra step to exhaustion has the opposite effect.

      In early November, it was suddenly announced that Beatrice was pulling the plug and that the team would be wound up. I’d been there a grand total of four months.

      On the one hand, well, at least it wrapped up what wasn’t a happy period. On the other, the design cycle of any car needs to start in June, early August at the very latest, after which it’s too late to research and design a new car. So, I was in the position now where I couldn’t be responsible for the design of a car for the following season. It was just way too late.

      Enter Bernie Ecclestone, a cameo role.