duPont REGISTRY January 2024

The designer of the Aston Martin Valhalla is the same one who drew the Valkyrie. He is also the same mad genius behind Red Bull Racing’s black magic F1 designs. He is Adrian Newey, a quiet Englishman with a cutting wit and a bald head. Among aerodynamics aficionados—people such as myself—he is referred to in hushed tones as “the man who can see air.” When Sebastian Vettel went on his four-year championship run in Red Bull from 2010 to 2013, he did so in large part due to Newey’s reinvention of how exhaust gas blows over the diffuser deck, creating off-throttle downforce in corners that gave Vettel an unbeatable handling advantage in corner entry (and elsewhere; it’s complicated). After the FIA outlawed that trick, Newey needed a few seasons to find a secret source of aero advantage that continues to baffle the competition to this day. Vettel’s replacement, Max Verstappen, is now demolishing all winning records with the ease of a quiet summer breeze. Like the Valkyrie, its wilder, less