By Joe Murphy
F1’s most-successful ever designer; Adrian Newey, is officially on the Aston Martin payroll, after starting on Monday.
A new era has dawned at Aston Martin with legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey starting work after 20 years and multiple championships at Red Bull.
Newey, 66, has joined Aston Martin as managing technical partner in deal announced midway through last season. There have been stories that Aston Martin is something of a blank canvas ahead of the 2025 campaign, allowing Newey to truly have creative control. Following a mixed testing experience earlier this week, Newey’s appointment couldn’t come soon enough for fans of the green team and it’s drivers. The outfit completed the second fewest laps of any team and didn’t excite anybody with their times.
As with Alpine, Williams and especially Sauber, the main focus this year is set to be on F1’s major regulations overhaul for 2026. It is next season when his new team are eyeing a breakthrough at the front of the grid, going hand-in-hand with Honda becoming the teams new engine provider.
Despite wanting to be Constructors Champions eventually, Aston Martin are also eying a stronger 2025 season compared to 2024 when they fell away from the top four teams in the standings.
New team principal Andy Cowell has overseen a winter management restructure at the team.
He is quoted as giving thoughts on testing results and the capture of Newey; “Initial feedback from Lance [Stroll] and Fernando [Alonso] suggests we have made progress with the drivability of the car, but we have also discovered areas that could be better and need more focus. It is very early days to be making any judgements on how much progress we have made during the winter and how we compare to our competition. We have been focused on ourselves; we have just kept our heads down to get the data and information we need before the racing begins.”
Aston Martin’s signing of Newey represents a brilliant get, given the veteran engineer’s record of success at his previous three teams in F1 (Red Bull, McLaren and Williams). Time will tell if the move is a productive one.
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