Just_a_fan wrote:
The problem is how do you isolate the effect of one individual? At McLaren, Newey was in heavily involved in the MP4/18 and that never raced because they couldn't get the thing to work. His fault or the team's? Who knows. Likewise the MP4/13 which won the title in 98. Or was that as much down to the excellent Merc Ilmor engine?
If you're interested in the MP4 18 there's a good book about it, called "cars that never raced" or something like that. Will give you some more insights.
MP4 13 was a good chassis. Merc Ilmor engine was strong (if unreliable) but a strong engine alone is not enough.
At Williams he was involved with the FW14 / 14B / 15 series. They were great race winners. Was that Newey or the team or even Patrick Head (after all he had designed the FW7 which was a winner and much more down to the work of a few men under Head's lead (or was it really Neil Oatley's baby?))?
One might find it curious that Williams never produced such dominant cars since Newey left.
See the issue. No one is doubting that Newey is an excellent design engineer but we can't know how much of the RB5 - 7 series success is down to him (lots, I'm sure but...).
The issue you seem to be bringing up is that alot will come down to opinions and some things cannot be proven (which is no different to many of the topics on this forum). Does not mean we cannot express our opinions and have a good debate about it.
