But the follow-up CG891 proved disastrous.
“If you think that one was good, wait until you see this one,” Newey reflects about the car that failed to score a single point in 1989.
The transition from design hero to zero was brutal: “When you don’t understand the car, you start to doubt yourself. And there are plenty of people also happy enough to jump on that bandwagon as is I suppose normal in these situations.”
The 1990 season brought more misery, with both Leyton House drivers suffering DNQs. Behind the scenes, things were even worse.
Phillips fell ill early in the year, and team owner Akira Akagi – facing serious financial troubles – installed accountant Simon Keeble to run the show.
“He and I did not get on at all,” says Newey. “He took great glee in sort of undermining me in every single way he could find.”
Accountant Simon Keeble was brought in to run the team
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Then came the breakthrough. Moving wind tunnel facilities to Brackley, Newey discovered the problem: “It turned out that the rolling road in Southampton had what was like a dip in a hill, it was like a banana, up at each end. Which meant that the diffuser was more stable than it was on a flat piece of ground.”
The Southampton tunnel had been masking a fundamental flaw: the diffuser was stalling at most ride heights.
Newey set to work on a new floor, but before it could be tested, Keeble struck. The Monday after Newey had already met Patrick Head to discuss a Williams move, he was summoned: “Keeble said, ‘Come into my office.’ He said I was going to be removed as technical director.
“I could stay on as an aerodynamicist if I wished to, but Chris Murphy is going to be brought in as the new technical director. So I thought, ‘well, I’m certainly not staying for that’.
“Technically he didn’t fire me, he offered me the chance to stay if I wished to as head of aero, but not as technical director. So I negotiated a small exit penalty, and off I went.”
Newey was on borrowed time at Leyton House after the nadir of double non-qualification at the 1990 Mexican GP
Race engineer Andy Brown witnessed the decision and protested: “Don’t do this, he’s got this new underfloor package coming out… The guy’s obviously brilliant, he just needs to learn his craft.” But Keeble was unmoved, reportedly replying: “I can’t get sponsorship for an Adrian Newey-designed car.”
Chief engineer Tim Holloway resigned in solidarity. A week later, they tested Newey’s new diffuser at Silverstone. “We did a back-to-back, it was literally one floor off, the other floor on, and it was night and day difference. The new diffuser was 2sec-2.5sec a lap quicker.”
The following Sunday at Paul Ricard, Newey watched from his sofa as both Leyton House cars surged through the field. Capelli led before a fuel pressure issue dropped him to second behind Alain Prost.
“I was pretty confident that the car would be better,” Newey admits. “I didn’t think it would go from being a car that couldn’t even qualify to a car that was unlucky not to win the next race!”
Without Newey to develop the package, the team faded.
Meanwhile, their fired designer headed to Williams where, impressed by those Leyton House performances, Head promoted him to chief designer. Two years later, Newey claimed his first F1 title with Nigel Mansell.
