Adrian Newey recalls how he once made Ron Dennis ‘incandescent with rage’ while working for McLaren

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Ron Dennis was always known for being a tough leader at McLaren, and in the late 1990s, he set about changing the team’s work culture and the setting of their Woking offices.

The style was ‘battleship grey’ that mimicked the colour of their cars through the 1997 and 2004 seasons, and was replicated across McLaren’s campus.

At the same time, Dennis was leading a resurgence on track with David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen, with the latter going on to win two titles in 1998 and 1999.

Adrian Newey had joined from Williams, but in the weeks after he started, he describes having one fight with Dennis that led to him storming out of his office, ‘incandescent with rage’ when recounting the episode in his book, How to Build a Car.

Ron Dennis storms out of Adrian Newey’s office after having walls repainted

Newey uses pen and paper sketches rather than computers to illustrate his design work, which means he spends a lot of time in his office and often late at night.

When he moved into McLaren’s newly revamped offices, Newey decided to add a bit of colour to what he felt was an oppressive and stifling working environment, much to the dismay of Dennis.

“My office now was a breath of fresh air. Everything I had asked for had been done, and the factory manager had done a great job. What was dark and cheerless previously was now duck-egg blue with a tan carpet, a tremendous improvement. Stepping from the monotone of the wider McLaren factory into my office was like that bit in The Wizard of Oz when they turn on the Technicolour. The long nights would be less depressing,” wrote Newey.

“Ron, however, was less impressed when, on Monday evening, he came round to see how I was getting on. Standing at the doorway, his jaw dropped and he stood gulping like a goldfish for what was probably 30 seconds, but felt like five minutes, going redder and eventually deep purple, with me thinking: ‘My god, he’s going to have a heart attack’ until, without uttering a single word, he span on his heel and returned to the sanctuary of McLaren grey.

“Luckily, it was very much the honeymoon period and I couldn’t do anything wrong, so I got away with it, but his wife Lisa recounted years later that he was incandescent with rage when he got home that night. Ron was… Well, let’s say he likes to have firm control over everything around him. Imposing grey upon the world of McLaren was an example of that in action. He didn’t like to be challenged.”

• READ MORE: Adrian Newey already ‘pushing the boundaries’ at Aston Martin after ‘exciting’ 2026 F1 car claim emerges

Adrian Newey thriving under 2026 regulation changes

Newey’s next project is at Aston Martin, where he is currently working on their car design concepts for the 2026 season.

Billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll made sure that Newey was fully focused on their 2026 project, now that teams are allowed to work on their chassis.

One of the biggest strengths of having him in a team is his ability to spot areas of performance gains in new regulation sets, and Newey is ‘thriving’ under those regulation changes.

That being said, Newey revealed that Aston Martin has done ‘little’ to prepare before he joined, which has put him under ‘huge’ time pressure to deliver.