Adrian Newey at Aston Martin: Key Takeaways

Aston Martin F1 owner Lawrence Stroll called Adrian Newey’s move to his team “news of enormous importance”. And this is no exaggeration, given the impressive list of achievements of the most successful race car designer in Formula 1 history.

Journalists from British publication The Race attempted to highlight some key points following today’s event.

Unexpected turn

Adrian Newey is known for his unique way of working and has held a special position at Red Bull Racing in recent years. You would expect that if he were to move to another team, one with a more traditional Formula 1 organisational structure, he would have to take on a more traditional position.

Officially, his role is called ‘managing technical partner’, which also sounds rather unusual. According to Lawrence Stroll, he will be “the leader who sets the direction for the team”.

Newey confirmed: “I will dedicate all my time to the team. I have to do this, it’s a necessity.”

The fact is that at Red Bull’s base he only worked three days a week, but now he will not only have to lead the development of the 2026 car, but also reshape the team so that it is best prepared for the transition to the new technical regulations.

Given that Newey is already 65, it is unlikely that this will continue indefinitely, and most likely there are already agreements that his workload will decrease somewhat in a few years. That. gradually, his approach to business will become more or less the same as at Red Bull, and he will be involved in “pure creativity”, he will be able to devote time to some other projects, etc.

But it is clear that after he takes up his duties on 1 March next year, he will not initially be an honorary advisor with non-specific responsibilities, but will be fully and 100% involved in a new project for him. And this cannot fail to surprise Aston Martin’s rivals and even strike some fear into them.

Newey must reform the team

One of the most important conclusions to be drawn from Newey’s introduction to the press is that he will be partnered by Lawrence Stroll. And not just because he will be one of the shareholders of Aston Martin F1: he will be tasked with reshaping the team and reshaping the technical department as he sees fit.

Stroll has already made it clear that Adrian will be responsible for ‘structural changes’.

At the same time, contracts have already been signed with a number of high-level technical specialists, in particular Andy Cowell will take on the role of CEO, Bob Bell has become Executive Technical Director and Enrico Cardile has become Technical Director. . And this is not an exhaustive list.

So Newey has someone to rely on, but apparently he can make some new personnel changes, and it cannot be ruled out that not everyone will keep their position in the team. However, Stroll has probably promised Newey a lot of freedom of action and will try not to burden him with the day-to-day administrative work – that is what other managers are for.

How Stroll Convinced Newey

The cost, which runs into tens of millions of pounds, will not hit Newey’s bank account, but everyone agrees that financial factors were not decisive.

Some time ago, Lawrence Stroll gave his future ‘technical partner’ a special tour of the new Aston Martin base, and he saw with his own eyes the magnitude of the plans and the fact that the conditions for their implementation had already been created.

Stroll captivated Newey with the idea that he could take the team from the middle of the pack to the leaders within a few years – Adrian had accomplished similar feats more than once, just think of the examples of Williams and Red Bull. There is a new element to all this, however: Newey has been invited to become a shareholder in Aston Martin F1 and personally take charge of its transformation.

Today he said that he had never been offered this before: it is reliably known that in the second half of the nineties he was prepared to acquire a stake in Williams, partly to influence the choice of drivers. However, Frank Williams and Patrick Head turned him down because they did not want to share the powers. Newey did not like it and moved to McLaren. The rest is history.

Perhaps Adrian will one day tell in more detail about the reasons that forced him to part with Red Bull, because years later he told how his attitude towards the collaboration with Williams and McLaren changed. In the meantime, he is taking on a new project with genuine enthusiasm – anyone who followed today’s press conference could be convinced that this is exactly the case, because Adrian smiled very sincerely and his eyes really lit up, because he was already anticipating the upcoming adventure. Perhaps the last of his illustrious career.