Adrian Newey’s to-do list: The five most important Aston Martin tasks
A man with his machine: Monday March 3 marks Adrian Newey's first day at Aston Martin
Aston Martin’s potential ticket to the top arrives today (Monday March 3) as F1 design guru Adrian Newey officially starts work with his new team following the news of his Red Bull exit last year.
Newey stands as the most decorated individual in F1 history with involvement in more than 200 race wins and a combined 26 Drivers’ and Constructors’ title triumphs for Red Bull, McLaren and Williams. What’s on the 66-year-old’s to-do list as he begins life at Silverstone?
Adrian Newey’s Aston Martin to-do list
Harness the potential of Honda and Aramco ahead of F1 2026
You know you’re a very important person when your new employers create a new role specifically for you.
So it was last September when Aston Martin appointed Newey to the newly created position of ‘managing technical partner’.
His role is exactly what it says on the tin: Newey will manage the relationship with incoming engine partner Honda, fuel supplier (and title sponsor) Aramco and lubricants provider Valvoline – all of whom signed a special technical collaboration agreement last year – with the aim of producing the fastest car possible for F1’s new rules in 2026.
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Newey is already on record saying that F1 is likely to revert to being an engine formula in 2026, making it essential for his new team to get it right with Honda from the off.
And his influence alone makes Aston Martin-Honda far more likely to go the way of Red Bull-Honda, the dominant team/engine partnership of recent years and a relationship largely overseen by Newey, than the doomed McLaren-Honda alliance of 2015-17.
With F1 embracing fully sustainable fuels from next year too, what goes in the tank could emerge as a greater performance differentiator than ever before.
Nobody in the sport is better placed to mix all these different ingredients together to bake something special for 2026.
Let. Adrian. Cook.
Search for opportunities in the F1 2026 regulations
If you have read Newey’s 2017 book, How To Build A Car, you will likely be familiar with his approach to a new set of F1 regulations.
His top priority is to establish a concept that can be evolved over the duration of a rules cycle, ensuring a consistency of design and linear rate of improvement from season to season.
The second thing he’s looking to achieve? Incorporating ideas and innovations that rival teams will find difficult to replicate – or copy – on their own cars.
Do both of those things and an extended period of success awaits.
Under the terms of his Red Bull exit, negotiated by his manager and former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan last year, Newey has sidestepped the long period of gardening leave commonplace in F1 staff contracts.
With Aston Martin getting their hands on Newey far earlier than they could ever have wished, opportunity knocks for the team to make a fine start to F1’s new era.
Over to Adrian to study the 2026 rules and spot things the other teams might miss.
Get to know Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll
It has been long time coming, this alliance between Newey and Fernando Alonso.
The two-time World Champion has come close to working with Newey on at least two occasions in the past, first when he originally left McLaren at the end of 2007 and again in a secret meeting in the backseat of a car at Spa airport after a Belgian Grand Prix (the exact year it took place is disputed).
Alonso has suffered enough at the hands of Newey over the years – he always regarded Adrian, not Sebastian Vettel, as his real threat over at Red Bull during his unfulfilled Ferrari career – but now?
Now he has him on his side.
More on Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin
Throughout Red Bull’s recent dominance, it was thrilling to sit back and imagine the conversations taking place between Newey and Max Verstappen in between simulator sessions at the factory – shall we do this? What if we try that? – as if watching the Beatles record in the studio.
There will no doubt be a similar rush among those fortunate enough to witness such greats as Alonso and Newey exchanging ideas deep inside Aston Martin’s headquarters in 2025.
As with Max at Red Bull, the partnership between Alonso and Newey has the potential to become Aston Martin’s driving force – but do not overlook what Adrian could do for Lance Stroll either.
Newey is known to be a close friend of Rob Wilson, the esteemed driver coach (previously employed by the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen, Nico Rosberg, Sergio Perez and more) who has worked regularly with Stroll since his debut season with Williams in 2017.
That instant little piece of common ground could be key to helping Stroll’s flashes of potential become more regularly accessible.
Get up to speed in Aston Martin’s state-of-the-art factory
An office complete with a drawing board will be ready and waiting for Newey when he walks through the doors of Aston Martin’s factory on Monday morning.
That’s according to the newly installed team principal, Andy Cowell, who told media including PlanetF1.com at the recent F1 75 event that Aston Martin have the essentials “in place” to welcome their big signing.
Cowell, credited for the success of the Mercedes engine following F1’s last major engine changes in 2014, is very much cut from the same cloth as Newey.
His reputation as one of the best organisers and greatest leaders in the sport means that as well as Aston Martin having Newey to manage the relationship with Honda/Aramco, Adrian will also have someone to manage him too.
One of Christian Horner’s greatest achievements at Red Bull was keeping hold of Newey for far longer than any of his previous employers, making concessions and allowing Newey to work on other projects – including, famously, the Aston Martin Valkyrie – when he became disillusioned with the state of F1 in 2014.
In Cowell, Aston Martin have a similar figure equipped with the emotional intelligence to keep Newey engaged and his mind stimulated.
Aston Martin’s new state-of-the-art factory, described as the most impressive facility in F1 today, will no doubt help in that regard.
It is surely no coincidence that the first concrete rumours of Newey’s decision to join to Aston Martin emerged not long after he was treated to a private tour of the factory last June.
His official presentation by Aston Martin in September 2024 was also held at the Silverstone HQ.
Sprinkle some magic on the AMR25
In truth, the mood music was not great down at Aston Martin in pre-season testing last week.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on the final day in Bahrain, Alonso admitted that Aston Martin will need to execute “perfect weekends” in order to score points in early 2025.
With such an exciting future on the horizon, it is to be expected that the present – see also the soon-to-be-Audi Sauber team’s limp end to the current rules cycle – will suffer slightly.
Indeed, PlanetF1.com’s best guess over the initial 2025 pecking order after testing, based on conversations with teams up and down the paddock and impressions from watching trackside in Bahrain, puts Aston Martin and Sauber ninth and 10th respectively heading to Australia.
With the field so close on pace, however, Aston Martin have stopped short of writing off this season entirely.
Newey’s main focus will inevitably be on 2026.
Yet with his arrival handily coming less than two weeks before the opening race of the new season, do not be surprised if Aston Martin improve significantly in the space of just a few weeks, potentially surging to the head of the midfield when the first three flyaway races are over.
It is, as we will soon see, remarkable what the intervention of a single brilliant individual can do.
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