Badger would like to offer a hearty get well soon to Red Bull technical wizard Adrian Newey. The Englishman spent last night in hospital after a nasty shunt in a Ginetta G50 Cup race at Snetterton.
Newey- a keen amateur racer when he’s not designing world beating F1 cars- was competing in the British Touring Car Championship support event as a guest driver. During the third race of the weekend he was punted in to a spin when rival Julien Draper locked up attempting an overtaking move. Newey then spun back across the track and suffered a heavy side-on impact from Tony Hughes’s machine. Luckily for Newey his car was struck on the passenger side.
After some effort Adrian was removed from the car on to a stretcher and taken to hospital for checks. Fortunately his injuries don’t appear to be serious.
“Adrian has been taken to a local hospital as a precautionary measure. It’s testament to the strength of the G50 roll cage that the car withstood heavy impact and there were no serious injuries,” Ginetta chairman Lawrence Tomlison said in a statement yesterday.
Newey is of course one of the most successful car designers in Formula One history. After getting his break with the March team he joined Williams in 1990, and was heavily involved in the team’s domination of the 1990s. He switched to McLaren in 1997, and titles followed for Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and 1999.
After a barren spell with the Woking outfit he joined Red Bull in 2006 and has since overseen their transformation from mid-pack team to title contenders. After finishing runners-up in both the drivers’ and constructors standings last season the new RB6 has shown stunning speed in 2010, and Red Bull lead both championships entering the summer break. Newey was recently given an RB5 as a thank you for his part in turning the team around (which is much better than the new tie I got upon leaving my last job).
With three weeks before the next grand prix Adrian has plenty of time to recover fully and be on the pitwall for Spa. He’s no doubt feeling very achy today, so everyone at Badger wishes him well.
And we hope this won’t put him off getting behind the wheel and competing again soon.
