How To Build A Car

Adrian Newey is an amazingly talented F1 car designer among other things. This “biography” is focused on the cars he’s built through his F1 career with only a bit of personal biography included. However, it’s fascinating and very interesting for anyone who enjoys cars, engineering, motor racing and/or Formula 1.

I thoroughly enjoyed Adrian Newey's reflections on his development from a racing-obsessed kid into one of the most prolific engineers and technical leaders of motorsport. As an aerospace engineer and aerodynamicist myself, I found many of his stories of overcoming challenges to eventually succeed to be very relevant to my own career and life experiences - his grit and ingenuity are truly inspirational. Furthermore his mention of personal/family challenges along the way make Adrian even more relatable as a person, and someone even more respectable for having achieved what he has despite going through hard times in his life. If I had to level one minor criticism at the book I would say some of the discussions get a bit technical (though they do avoid resorting to numbers and equations), and in Newey's defense he has included some figures and sketches to try and help explain things. What's really cool though is that those sketches are probably straight off of his drawing board from his successful stints at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull when working with legends such as Senna, Hakkinen, and Vettel!I highly recommend that anyone interested in motorsport as well as engineering in general pick up this book - it is well worth the read. It certainly has it's place in my library!

Super accessible, very personable. Might have benefited from a more aggressive editor. It is practically essential reading for newer fans of F1 (me) to understand how we got into the situation where a single car is so much better than everything else on the grid.

Since my first F1 race at Watkins Glen watching Mario in a beautiful black lotus I’ve been a fan of F1. Adrian’s story telling brings so many memories of races past. I remember getting up early here in the states to watch many races over seas live, and reading this book just brought it all back again!Thank you Adrian and keep on keeping on! Happy Trails! Shawn Caffrey

Super readable. To my pleasant surprise, Adrian's anecdotes about his life, work ethic, and the politics of F1 are as interesting as his technical insights. A quick and charming read, there's a world where this book came out very dry. Instead, it's bubbling with Adrian's goofy personality.The only things I would have wanted beyond what's on offer:an update for 2018-2021, and the current generation of cars, which for obvious reasons probably won't happen until 2026, if at all.A little more depth and explanation on the technical discussion/drawings. Adrian and his ghost writer do a pretty admirable job here, and I know there's probably a slew of valid reasons they didn't do this. Still, I think it might have been cool to have an appendix where, for example, they fleshed out the math used in figuring out a new gear box, or to elucidate some of the discrepancies between CFD, the wind tunnel, and the track that pop up at various times. Maybe that would be boring. Still, even though I loved the book I've wasted most of my review talking about it, so I guess nobody wins.

I really enjoyed this book as it didn't have any dull moment. I am just an engineer interested in the design process but after reading this book I've become very interested in F1.

It is technically an autobiography in that it includes a bunch of details about Adrian Newey's personal life and follows his life story. But I think many F1 fans would thoroughly enjoy this even if they don't much care about the author himself. It's mainly centered around a series of designs as his career and the F1 regulations progressed. If you like Steve Matchett's more technical writing like The Chariot Makers, then you'll definitely love this. It goes a little more in depth on finer details of the cars, and includes a bunch of drawings to illustrate the designs, but still feels like very light reading. It's thick with tons of material, but I tore through it while on vacation. Very enjoyable read. Even as a long-time follower of F1, it explained a lot of historical and technical context I had remained unaware of that's still very relevant today.

I am new to race car engineering and and management, so this book was an eye-opener for me. As an engineer in buildings design, the depth of technical detail was right for me and should be for readers with technical or mechanical interest. Overall, the book was fun and moved along well, the most fun being the discussions of the drivers, their races, and their relations with their cars.