Daredevil Newey has another accident

When I was writing the other day about the things that could stop Red Bull winning the world championships, I forgot to consider an incapacitated technical director.

Red Bull got away with it today when Adrian Newey had another accident, this time at the wheel of a Ginetta G50 in the BTCC support race at Snetterton.

Newey was spun into the path of another car. After a heavy side-on impact, he was removed from the car on a back-board and taken to hospital for check ups.

I'm told that in hospital he was chatting to the doctors, but was in some pain.

This is not the first time that Newey has had an accident. He had a huge accident in a Ford GT40 at Le Mans a few years ago, where the car snapped sideways at 180mph and smashed into the barriers. He escaped with a cut finger on that occasion.

And I clearly recall him crashing a motor bike into the awning of the Williams motorhome at Magny Cours in the early 1990s, doing a wheelie! Again nothing broken, but he had some gravel rash and a lot of embarrassment!

Newey is pretty active. It's great that a design guru like him wants to get out and compete himself. Lotus designer Colin Chapman was a keen driver and was very quick, by all accounts. He could go out in his own cars and assess driver feedback.

And although Red Bull are all about extreme sports and being on the edge, given Newey's importance to the team one wonders if someone high up will have a quiet word with him to cool it until they've got some titles in the bag.