Many fans claim Lewis Hamilton to be the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time. There are those who regard Adrian Newey as occupying a similar plane in the field of engineering. Whether you agree with either or both of these beliefs or not, the proposition of Hamilton driving a Ferrari whose design was superintended by Newey was delicious.
Sadly it’s not going to happen, thanks to the depth of Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll’s pockets and Newey deciding, at the age of 65, that a Rosetta Stone subscription doesn’t represent a productive use of his time.
It’s understood that Aston Martin offered Newey $100m over three seasons, a figure that Ferrari wasn’t willing to match – and Newey didn’t want to move to Italy. There had been a consultancy deal on the table enabling him to contribute from the UK but, given historic precedent, it’s probably for the best that this didn’t happen.
Twice Ferrari hired superstar engineer John Barnard as technical director and twice it submitted to his desire to work from premises close enough to his Godalming abode that he could go home for lunch. The first time around it didn’t work out owing to factional warfare – a group of engineers irked by him being hired above their heads took advantage of Barnard’s absence from Maranello to design their own car. Amusingly, once Barnard moved on (to Benetton), McLaren became the beneficiary of Ferrari’s UK investment, acquiring the small factory in the industrial estate overlooking the River Wey at Shalford and using it as the HQ for the F1 road car project. The second time around, Jean Todt soon recognised that faxing design blueprints page by page from leafy Surrey to Maranello was a sub-optimal working practice.
Of course, technology has moved on since then and, post-pandemic, working from home has become a thing… Well, until recently, when many companies have begun to tug the bungee cord and instruct their employees to drag themselves back to the office.
It’s often said that any problem can be solved provided you throw enough money at it. I would contend that Toyota disproved the validity of this maxim in F1 but there’s no doubt Lawrence Stroll is willing to spend whatever it takes to elevate his team to the front of the grid. There’s a smart new factory opposite the gates of Silverstone, with a cutting-edge windtunnel opening soon. Still, you have to question the wisdom of simply adding big-name hires to an already top-heavy structure when McLaren, to name just one example, is doing perfectly well by getting the best out of its existing talent…
