Priestley: Newey has zero compromise when it comes to perfomance

Priestley's career in F1 at McLaren began after gaining experience in F3 and F3000 teams, In 2000, the McLaren call came to be test team #2 mechanic. A year later he was promoted to the race team in the same role which he held until 2006.

He was then made #1 mechanic in 2007 before he became McLaren's race team Chief Mechanic a year later. In 2009 he departed the team

Newey drew McLaren F1 cars during a spell at Woking after a spell of gardening leave from Willimas, before joining the team led by Ron Dennis from 1997 until 2005. Adrian then left to join Red Bull.

Newey's F1 car design record speaks for itself:

Having spent five seasons working under Newey's watch over design matters at McLaren, in an interview this week made possible by OLBG, Priestley took a trip back in time: "I worked with Adrian for all of the 2000s until he left McLaren. So from 2000 to 2005. I remember when he actually left the team and joined Red Bull.

"Amazing guy. His attention to detail is second to none. I'll give you a story. I remember working on a car that Adrian had designed at McLaren years ago. And we had this huge bargeboard or deflector on the side of the car. An enormous bit of kit and the suspension ran through the middle of it.

"In my mind, the obvious thing to do was to put a little slot in the deflector because they were over forever getting damaged and knocked off on curbs, and we'd have to keep changing them. What you really want to do is just slot it over the suspension and put a new one on.

"But you couldn't do that, because Adrian would not have a slot in this deflector. So we had to remove the whole front suspension, which took forever to get this board on. And I remember sitting there frustrated one day in the middle of his job, and he walked past."

Marc (pictured above during his time at McLaren) continued: "Adrian, I said, just come and have a look at this and asked 'when you're designing these things, how much as a rough percentage of your capacities you put into practicality and thinking about people like me working on his car, as opposed to the outright performance?' He said zero.

"It's all about performance he said. And you know, frustrating as that was for me, I have a total respect for that. And that's what drives Adrian. It's what's brought these brilliant cars over the years because it's that focus attention to detail, he goes to levels that most people wouldn't do," explained Priestley.

Newey's departure from Red Bull will mark the end of an era. Over 20 years with the team, Newey has built for them an ultra-efficient design team. But his huge influence, experience and stature as the greatest technical thinker of modern F1, will be missed by any team.

Priestley ventured: "I think Red Bull are going to lose that. And potentially somebody else is going to gain that. So he's he's undoubtedly a loss. Yes, he's coming to the end of his career there but Red Bull will be fine. They've got a great team of people.

"This wasn't just all about Adrian. At Red Bull, a lot of people have contributed to that success. And they are great in almost every area. They'll be okay. But there's no doubt that it's going to be Red Bulls loss, and then perhaps someone else's gain."

Invariably the question everyone is waiting to be answered: Will Newey join Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at Ferrari next year? Italy expects so and report that an announcement was due after Miami. Supposedly after the British designer and Ferrari team principal Fred Vassuer met in London last week to finalise the deal. We wait.

Until then, Priestley shared his thoughts on a Newey swansong at Ferrari: "I'd love to see it. I do believe he's going to turn up somewhere else. He confirmed at the weekend that he wants to take a break when he leaves Red Bull and have some time to travel with his wife, I get that.

"But he's also negotiated his way out of the gardening leave period. And you don't do that unless you've got hopes of going to another team in the sport. So there's a big regulation change on the horizon. Those are the things that really excite people like Adrian Newey.

"If he can get to a new team, and if it is Ferrari, wonderful, but if that's in the start of 2025, or somewhere through 25, he will have the opportunity to be instrumental in the design process of the big change in 2026," predicted Priestley.