Red Bull F1 designer Adrian Newey has been voted the 2024 World Car Person of the Year by a jury of more than 100 journalists from 29 countries.
As chief technical officer of Red Bull Racing, the aerodynamicist is the designer and driving force behind the RB19, the most dominant race car in the history of Formula One.
In 2023, it won 21 of 22 races, enabling Red Bull’s sixth and Max Verstappen’s third world championships and establishing the design concept to be pursued by most of its competitors. After 35 years in Formula 1 and more than 200 victories for cars of his design, Newey is at the peak of his career.
The other four finalists for this year’s award were Stephan Durach, senior vice-president for connected company development at BMW group; Andreas Preuninger, director of the GT model line at Porsche; CV Raman, chief technology officer at Maruti-Suzuki; and Lisa Reeves, head of interior design at Volvo Cars.
The World Car Person of the Year award was created in 2018 to recognise an individual who has made a significant contribution to the global automotive industry. This could include a significant effect on their brand or company, or a significant safety, engineering, design or technical advancement or benefit to the industry or to consumers.
Previous recipients were SangYup Lee, executive vice-president, head of Hyundai and Genesis Global Design Center, Hyundai Motor Company (2023); Luc Donckerwolke, executive vice-president for design and chief creative officer, Hyundai Motor Group (2022); Akio Toyoda, president and CEO, Toyota Motor Corporation (2021); Carlos Tavares, CEO of PSA Group (2020); the late Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FCA; and Håkan Samuelsson, president and CEO, Volvo Car Group (2018).
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