Will Adrian Newey’s F1 legacy be defined in Aston Martin’s new era?

Adrian Newey’s tenure as an F1 team boss has begun in earnest, with Aston Martin holding its season launch in Saudi Arabia on Monday.

Amidst a series of virtual launch sessions and digital renders, Aston Martin kicked off F1’s new era with a ceremony of pomp and circumstance that showcases the obvious pride that has been built up within the organisation over recent years.

Adrian Newey had ‘tear in my eye’ as AMR26 was born

“I’m going to give you all the tools you need to beat these guys…” were the closing words of Lawrence Stroll in his team’s launch video, booming out across the assembled partners, guests, and media, including PlanetF1.com, nestled in the cosy Ithra Museum that was the venue for Aston Martin’s launch event.

Seemingly recorded during a garage address during a Grand Prix weekend, Stroll’s comments have proven prescient as he’s bolstered Aston Martin in every way conceivable over the past five years – with the crowning achievement being successfully tempting Adrian Newey to join forces.

Even for a hardened warrior of F1 such as Newey, a man who has been there, done that, and worn the T-shirt (and probably designed it), the reveal of the AMR26’s luxurious satin green livery in a ceremony of obvious pride was a moment to be revered, coming days after the actual car had taken to the track for the first time in the Barcelona shakedown.

Sitting front-row, next to F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, in the intimately cosy Ithra theatre, Newey politely clapped at all the right moments during the occasion, which saw Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll speak of their excitement at getting to drive a machine penned by the designer without parallel.

“May I just start by saying, I’ve seen many launches. I think that was outstanding,” Newey said, to rapturous applause, as he took to the stage, visibly moved by the spectacle made of another one of his creations coming to life.

“It really makes you feel proud to be part of Aramco, Honda, Aston Martin… the music by Hans Zimmer, it was absolutely stunning.”

While the AMR26 marks just the latest creation from his drawing board, a car that, at this point, appears unlikely to add to his long list of title winners, the 40-minute event marks the commencement of a whole new chapter in Newey’s life – one in which he has been elevated from what has been, no matter how illustrious, a supporting cast member role into that of a leading man.

Coming on board with Aston Martin as managing technical partner for Stroll’s team, Newey’s long tenure with Red Bull long-faded in the rear-view mirror, he has since made management choices that put him in complete control of the squad, moving fellow illustrious engineer Andy Cowell aside from the team principal role in order to take on the job of leading a team both as a manager and a part-owner.

The enormity of this challenge, and the goal in his career that he has reached, struck him upon seeing the AMR26 come to life.

“When it first pulled out of the garage with Lance driving, Lawrence and I were standing next to each other in the pitlane,”he said.

“I think we were both quite close to having a tear in our eye, because it’s been a long, emotional journey of passion and enormous hard work to get it to Barcelona.”

How good might the Aston Martin AMR26 be?

Unquestionably the most anticipated car of the F1 2026 grid, the all-black AMR26 (a choice that wasn’t really a choice as Newey explained there had been no time to paint it) caught the attention of fans and media in droves when it peeled out of the garage in the closing stages of the penultimate day in Barcelona.

After all, Newey has often created cars that prove the class of the field, or close to it, right from the start of a regulations upheaval – think the multitude of Williams cars through the 1990s, the McLaren MP4/13 from 1998, and Red Bull’s efforts in 2009 and 2022.

Against such a backdrop, why shouldn’t there be excitement about the potential to see Newey, once again, elevate a team from the midfield right to the front?

“I’ve tried to do my best to visualise what the [air] flow is, and what it’s likely to be,” Newey explained.

“Nowadays, with CFD, that’s a fabulous tool for actually being able to stare at a computer screen and understand what’s going on, unlike the old days where it was the wind tunnel, bits of smoke and flow viz. Now you can see it in much more detail.

“But that only tells you what it’s doing at that point of time. It’s then using the clues from that to try to move forwards and develop the next item.”

Expanding on the genesis of the AMR26, Newey revealed that much of the concept had been conceived during his downtime between jobs after leaving Red Bull.

“The philosophy came during my garden leave time,” he said.

“I was on gardening leave from late April, effectively, until March 2 when I joined the team. We all knew what the regulations were, they were published.

“So I just tried to sit back and think ‘Okay, what are these regulations, just think through first principles, what could be a possible solution?’

“I came up with a philosophy and, when I started with the team, I discussed that philosophy with the aerodynamicists and designers at Aston Martin – we all agreed that that seemed a viable proposal, and that’s what we’ve followed ever since.”

Will Adrian Newey’s legacy be one of triumph?

To a certain degree, Newey’s remarks could be seen as underlining the steeliness of his resolve in leadership. After all, Newey’s stance that all were in alignment with his ideas doesn’t seem unthinkable – who can dare to question the knowledge, experience, and proven genius that have been his cornerstones for so long?

As reported by PlanetF1.com, Andy Cowell is set to depart the squad later this year, having found his role assimilated by Newey amidst their differing opinions on how the team should be run.

With the rug swept from under him just a year after being tempted back into F1, Cowell’s unhappiness can hardly be considered surprising, and he was a notable absentee from the launch’s speeches, even as Aramco, Valvoline, and Honda – the partners he was assigned to liaise with to optimise synergy – spoke about the work they’ve done to prepare for the new rules cycle.

Let’s not forget that Cowell himself, while perhaps lacking some of the ethereal mystique Newey’s magic has given him, is also a highly celebrated engineer and a proven leader. His past remit focused on power units, engineering some of the sport’s most competitive engines through his years with BMW and Ilmor (later Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains), and emerging as a well-liked and popular manager through multiple titles at HPP.

It was a major coup for Stroll to tempt Cowell out of his sabbatical from F1 and, to turn away from that path so quickly suggests either a fundamental incompatibility between Cowell and Aston Martin’s ethos, or Newey’s apparent ‘my way or the highway’ ethos, one that logically must be backed by Stroll, has seen an unhappy Cowell choose to walk away.

Sources from his past teams speak in reverential tones about how Newey operates, with a single-mindedness that is described in equal parts just as “infuriating” as it is successful. Others will say his style has always been more to work in isolation, a brain that comes to life while locked away in his office, wrapped up in his designs.

Given that Newey has said he doesn’t wish to let his new role as team principal dilute this technical focus, is the team principal role really one that will play to his strengths? If personnel management, the minutiae of daily oversight of an entire team, the ebb and flow of knowing how best to utilise and enable the brilliance inside a team, proves to be a different skillset than he possesses, might this breakdown with Cowell prove to be an early stumble?

It’s in this quandary that so much of Newey’s entire legacy in F1 could hinge. After all, when one thinks of Alain Prost today, his short tenure as the team owner of a beleaguered Prost GP comes to mind just as much as his driving successes.

Having proven himself as one of the finest minds and most competitive sportsmen in F1’s history, will Newey prove himself in yet another arena and elevate himself yet further in the echelons of the incredible achievements of the sport?

Or will past whispers about how Newey has always needed others to temper his ideas, a contrary voice to shut down the moments when there’s a reach too far, prove correct?

More on Aston Martin

Aston Martin AMR26 breaks cover as livery revealed

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

Adrian Newey anticipating ‘huge development’ in F1 2026

Of course, these are all questions that will be answered over the coming months and years, and the direction Aston Martin is travelling in has been made perfectly clear.

Stroll has entrusted his team to Newey, and the pride in this decision beamed out in the team’s launch material – this is a squad that has come very far in what has been a condensed couple of years of intense investment from Stroll, including the overhaul of its Silverstone base.

“The layout of the building is very conducive to everybody working together,” Newey said of the factory, where his office is an encased glass cube on the design floor. “It’s all very centralised and the facilities are second-to-none.

“Lawrence’s vision and investment into this building has given us, without doubt, the best facilities in F1, and that’s a tremendous asset. But it’s clearly only one part of the equation.”

In what could be interpreted as a veiled assessment of his relationship with his role predecessor, Newey said, “The equally important, the second part, is the personnel that populate that building, and how they work together. I feel we’re making huge strides on that at the moment…”

The ingredients are now in place: the infrastructure, the resources, and the promised tools. Armed with a Honda works deal and Newey – partners that are proven relentless winners – it stands to reason that Stroll, and title sponsor Aramco, would want to shout from the rooftops at the start of a season towards which it has been building.

The moment for delivering upon the potential built up within Aston Martin is here – perhaps not immediate, but the 2026 regulations reset means revolution.

And, for a team like Aston Martin and its state-of-the-art facilities, the development war that’s about to start could play directly into its hands under Newey’s watch.

“Whenever there’s a big regulation change, there’s always huge opportunities,” he said.

“It’s who spots what and which one is the answer and proves to be the correct solution… only time will tell.

“You saw that in 2022 when the last big regulation change came out, there were lots of different interpretations and solutions. In the end, one turned out to be the most correct or the most appropriate one and, let’s say by the start of 2024, everybody started to converge on.

“There’s likely to be a huge amount of development. I would imagine that, for many teams and including, to a certain extent, ourselves, the car that they ran in Barcelona will be a fair bit different to the car that they actually race in Melbourne and that pace will continue, I’m sure, through the season.”

With the launch coming to an end, and having opted against doing any extra media opportunities (which had been scheduled), Newey didn’t stick around long and, as guests gathered around the AMR26 for photo opportunities, he headed for the door.

Perhaps, with the ceremony out of the way, it was time to get back to the real work – preparing for the team’s programme of testing in Bahrain that kicks off on Wednesday, with the aim of catching up some of the lost ground from its late start in Barcelona.

Having allowed himself a brief moment of pride to see the 2026 project come together to commence his new challenge as a team principal, this rare, and typically low-key, public address was perhaps alluded to in the very opening comment of the launch video as the voiceover asserted:

“Watch closely, because what matters most rarely announces itself…”

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