Newey in Ferrari has a long history. Todt: “We spoke to Adrian before taking Brawn and Byrne. He didn’t want to come to Italy”

Newey and the three no’s to Ferrari Beyond the terrible start with Aston Martin, Adrian Newey is considered one of the legends of the paddock. In the Briton’s palmares there is the signature on some of the most iconic cars in the history of motorsport: among these, no Ferrari, a team that the designer has never married although he was close to landing in Maranello on three occasions: one in the nineties, another in 2014 and the last just before signing for Lawrence Stroll’s team. Newey’s first “no” to the Scuderia came in 1993, when Jean Todt’s era as general director of Ferrari began. To immediately give the team a boost, the Frenchman tried to convince Newey, who had just designed the prodigious Williams FW15, dominating the championship with Alain Prost at the wheel. Over 30 years later, Todt explained why Newey didn’t go to Ferrari. Todt’s words “We knew that to have a winning team we had to choose the best mechanics, the best engineers and the best partners. I remember that we had considered Adrian Newey, and that there had been a discussion. He didn’t want to come to Italy”, this is Todt’s comment on the High Performance podcast. Todt “consoled himself” in 1997 by hiring Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne from Benetton: “I have always respected Rory a lot, I already wanted him when I was managing the Peugeot Sport Cars program, but he wanted to stay in Formula 1. And Ross was a contact person, a technical director. They didn’t know that I was negotiating with both of them. I remember that after signing them I said: ‘Look, now you can tell each other that you’ve signed’. Ross replied: ‘Ok, I I’ll invite you over for a beer tomorrow.”