Forget the drivers; it's all about the design

The route to and from my office consists of some lovely country roads. It’s a half an hour’s trek consisting of nice gradients, cambers, hairpin bends, chicanes and some brown-trouser inducing blind flat out corners.

Unfortunately, every so often I come across another vehicle. This is a problem for two reasons. Firstly, there are only two or three short stretches where you can overtake safely. Secondly, my current car is not exactly a top of the range sports car so the already slim chance of making a successful overtaking move without impaling myself on an oncoming tractor is made even slimmer.

Fortunately, I have developed a sixth sense that gives me the ability to ascertain the type of driver I’m coming up behind. As a result, I know whether or not it’s worth risking life and limb to go for the overtaking move. My system for identifying my opportunity is based on what sort of car the person is driving.

Basically, anyone driving something like a Toyota Aygo, a Nissan Micra or any type of Suzuki is going to dawdle along the road at walking pace and be completely oblivious to any other road users. These people will get overtaken immediately and then flicked the bird for good measure.

A lot can be established about a person by what car they drive. For example, anyone who drives a Rover 75 or a Volkswagen Passat will be over 45 and balding and will therefore drive everywhere at 40 miles per hour. Anyone behind the wheel of a 4x4 will be a 30 something mother of 3 on a school run and therefore lost. Drivers of those new Minis and Beatles are all young women who will be a hazard because they’ll be too busy updating their Facebook status on their mobile phone whilst simultaneously doing their makeup and consequently won't know what the hell they are doing. People who drive old BMW 3 series' are drug dealers. On the other hand, anyone driving a new BMW will have a small penis. The same applies with Audis and Porsches. Of course then there are the drivers of Citroen Saxos, Honda Civics and Peugeot 206's or 306's. These are obviously driven by young man-boys who wear baseball caps, can’t do up their trousers properly and buy drugs from the people in the old BMW 3 Series.

Now the latter are in many ways the worst to get stuck behind on country roads because they will go faster than the speed of light on the straight bits but none of them - and I mean none – know how to take corners. This means that I’ll end up almost wiping the fake skirt off the back of their ridiculous vehicle every time we get to a bend in the road.

They are even more annoying when they are behind me because they will sit on my rear bumper through the 30 zone and on all the straight bits, trying to find a way past me while I deliberately hog the middle of the road. They will then disappear from my rear view mirror as soon as I negotiate a series of corners. Any idiot can drive fast in a straight line; it takes a bit of skill to negotiate a series of corners at speed without stacking it into a tree.

There are many other vehicles that get caught in my idiot radar. So many in fact that I simply don’t have the space to write about them all. The main point I’m trying to make is how much appearance matters with cars. Generally, if a car looks good it will be fast. Nowhere is this more notable than in the world of Formula 1.

When you look back over the decades at some of the great cars you can see a pattern. The Alfa Romeos and Ferraris of the 1950’s, the Lotuses of the 1960’s, the McLarens of the 1980’s and late 90’s, the Williams’ of the early 90’s and the obvious impressive curves of the 21st century Red Bulls. Notice I left the 1970’s out because that was a very tasteless age.

Obviously there are exceptions to this rule. The 1992 and 1993 Benetton for example. This was obviously a quick car but it looked like someone with Gastroenteritis had defecated on a box.

Of course the people behind these works of art are the designers. Now, Colin Chapman was the first design genius in Formula 1. Apart from the fact that he used to build his cars out of Paper Mache and they would disintegrate if you looked at them for too long, he was a visionary; the first person to experiment with aerodynamics with the front and rear spoiler in the late 60’s, the monocoque chassis and struts for rear suspension. His inventiveness with ground-effect and double chassis were both given the highest accolade possible in Formula 1; they were banned.

People like John Barnard and Gordon Murray deserve credit but there are two men who have had more success between them than any team or driver. Between them their cars won 13 consecutive drivers and constructors’ championships between 1992 and 2004, and continue to produce the results.

I’m not actually sure what Ross Brawn’s role was at Benetton or Ferrari. The title “Technical Director” is rather vague but he seemed to take all the credit for the cars that propelled Schumacher to 7 world titles with Benetton and Ferrari. The fact that his own Brawn team (formerly known as Honda formerly known as BAR formerly known as Tyrrell and now known as Mercedes) dominated in 2010 was a testament to how quickly he managed to turn the rubbish Honda outfit around before they decided to withdraw their Yen.

Adrian Newey needs no introduction. He first rose to prominence with the old Leyton House/March project in the late 80’s. Forgetting the hideous turquoise colour scheme, those cars were beautifully designed and way ahead of their time. They provided the team with a handful of podium finishes and much more success than they would have otherwise achieved.

As soon as he joined Williams prior to the 1991 season, they immediately embarked on their most successful period. Even more impressive was the fact that their championships in the 1990’s were all achieved with less than average drivers and has-beens.

When he left Williams for McLaren in mid 1997, Williams suddenly went down the toilet and McLaren started winning races and championships again. Then he left McLaren to join Red Bull formerly known as Jaguar formerly known as Stewart. Now this team are dominating. This is certainly no coincidence. It is a fact that Newey has designed some of the most beautiful Formula 1 cars over the last 20 years. The Williams FW14B, the McLaren MP4-13 and the current Red Bull’s are all classics in my opinion.

So say what you like about Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Senna, Prost, Schumacher and Alonso. They may have been good but they would all be drivers I would overtake on the way to work unless they were driving cars designed by Adrian Newey.