Adrian Newey will have an influence on Aston Martin’s 2025 car as well as its 2026 project as he starts work with his new team, according to team principal Andy Cowell.
The marquee signing of design legend Newey was one of Aston Martin’s key achievements last year, but it has had to wait until the first Monday in March for him to join from Red Bull. Group CEO Cowell took on the role of team principal earlier this year, and says Newey’s arrival will provide a boost for the team, as he will be given the scope to impact the current car.
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“Everybody’s super excited to work with Adrian,” Cowell said. “His record speaks for itself. We’re looking forward to welcoming him on-site, doing an induction for a new employee – it might be a little bit different – and starting work on introducing him to the key technical players within our business, showing him the business tools for engineering the car, and then getting stuck into creating a 2026 car and helping the improvements on 2025.”
Cowell says he is confident about where Newey will fit into the Aston Martin technical setup in his official role of managing technical partner, with a recent restructuring taking place within the rapidly growing team.
“As we announced in January, we’ve made some organizational changes to try and make the organization flatter and therefore more efficient, so that the communication is good and fast. And to try and have an emphasis of a trackside focus and a factory development focus, which I think is especially important for this year, where there’s one set of regulations with their last races and then a new set of regulations that are in place for five years.
“I’ve always found that if you have an engineer thinking about today and 12 months time, it’s always today that you focus on. And it’s about four in the afternoon that you start thinking about the next year and your brain’s a bit tired by then, or mine is.
“So having that well split so that integer individuals are spent on each project. We’re doing that and we’re putting a good emphasis into what’s everybody’s responsibility. What’s our responsibility as we come to work? And to keep it very simple and condensed down to just three responsibilities, crucial responsibilities.
“That’s the sort of thing I enjoy. I enjoy seeing a group of creative people focused, understanding that their partners are well focused and are delivering excellence. And then you tend to just look in your lane and do your best.
“So that’s the way we’re trying to work. As ever with these things, it’s the way that you try to work. Is it the way that you actually work every day? We’re all human. We’ve got chemical computers and they vary, don’t they, in emotions from day to day in different environments. So we’ll adapt as we go along.
“But we’ll just strive to make sure that every department’s doing its absolute best. And then reflecting and improving and reflecting and improving. And we believe that that will increase our development rate. If you increase your development rate, you overtake your opponents. And if you keep on improving your development rate, you stay ahead of your opponents.”
Newey recently told a BBC podcast he was setting no expectations for life at Aston Martin, having been with Red Bull for nearly two decades.
“I’m just looking forward to it and what will be, will be,” Newey said. “The first target really is to get to know everybody here, understand how everybody works, and try to integrate myself with everybody. It’s talking to the drivers, it’s talking to my fellow engineers, trying to bounce ideas off them. Getting that sort of creative flow going.”
