Andy Cowell to depart Aston Martin after role shift under Adrian Newey

Andy Cowell is set to depart the Aston Martin team later this year, following his change in role within the squad, PlanetF1.com has learned.

Cowell led the team as CEO and team principal throughout 2025, but saw his role change recently as Adrian Newey took over the job as team principal.

Andy Cowell set to leave Aston Martin

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

The British engineer is set to depart Aston Martin entirely later this year, with sources suggesting to PlanetF1.com that Cowell will finish with the team in June 2026, amidst a lack of compatibility with how his role within the team has evolved.

The split comes after changes made in late 2025 saw Newey appoint himself as team principal – Newey being a minority shareholder in Lawrence Stroll’s team as well as managing technical partner.

Cowell was appointed to a new role, becoming the team’s chief strategy officer, but this shift in responsibilities – which can only be seen as a demotion – is understood to have soured the relationship between him and the team, just over a year since his return to the sport.

While Cowell was present with Stroll at the launch of Honda’s new power unit in Tokyo, as well as on the ground for the team’s 2026 launch in Saudi Arabia, sources have suggested the split is proving acrimonious.

As the architect of Mercedes’ dominant hybrid power units during a 20-year tenure at High-Performance Powertrains in his role as managing director at its Brixworth facility, he had stepped away from Formula 1 at the end of 2020 to seek new professional challenges.

The British engineer had been tempted back into Formula 1 in mid-2024, with Stroll’s hefty investment into Aston Martin‘s facilities, personnel, and infrastructure key facets in Cowell’s decision to return to the grid in a senior leadership capacity.

Initially appointed as Group CEO and commencing work with the Silverstone-based squad in October 2024, Cowell made management changes of his own, replacing former team principal Mike Krack in the role of team principal as Krack moved into a trackside role.

Just two months after agreeing to join Aston Martin, Stroll signed another engineering powerhouse to join his ranks, with Newey taking a minor shareholding in the team alongside his job as managing technical partner, with his shareholding position putting him in a more powerful position with regard to any intra-team disputes.

Newey’s pedigree in the sport is unquestionable, with his car designs winning 12 Constructors’ World Championships and 14 Drivers’ World Championships over the past four decades.

Sources have previously indicated that Cowell and Newey have not been fundamentally aligned on a wide range of design topics, as well as on the dynamics of their leadership structure. This isn’t surprising, given Cowell’s focus on power units and Newey’s on aerodynamics and chassis.

Cowell was moved aside from his position at the end of the F1 2025 season, with Newey taking over, with Aston Martin thanking the 56-year-old for having “laid the foundations” for the team playing to its collective strengths in ’26.

A team statement clarified that both men had agreed that Cowell’s area of expertise would better serve the team in the area of optimisation of its technical partnerships with Honda, Aramco, and Valvoline, as Aston Martin moves from a Mercedes customer supply to a bespoke Honda engine supply.

With the new engines being homologated for 2026 on March 1st, Cowell’s input in this area would logically dwindle in the aftermath.

“To be perfectly honest, it became very evident that, with the challenge of the ’26 PU, Andy’s skillset, in terms of helping the three-way relationship between Honda, Aramco and ourselves, is absolutely his skillset,” Newey told Sky Sports F1 following the confirmation of the changes.

“So he very magnanimously volunteered to be heavily involved in that through the first part of ’26.

“And that left [the question], ‘OK, well who’s going to be TP?’

“Since I’m going to be doing all the early races anyway, it doesn’t actually particularly change my workload because I’m there anyway, so I may as well pick up that bit.”

While Newey leads Aston Martin in the team principal role, the 66-year-old has made it clear that working on the design of the AMR26, and cars beyond, remains his priority, begging the question of whether another team leadership change may be made.

“That’s really what I want to and need to do,” he said. “That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning, so I’m determined not to dilute that.”

PlanetF1.com has approached Aston Martin for comment.

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read Next: Is Barcelona testing blackout doing F1’s engineering excellence a disservice?