Aston Martin Signs Design Guru Adrian Newey, a Game-Changing Piece to F1 Puzzle

• Aston Martin confirmed today that Adrian Newey will be joining the F1 team in March 2025.

• Newey will take up the newly-created role of Managing Technical Partner.

• Newey-associated teams have won 13 Formula 1 Drivers’ titles and 12 Constructors’ titles, as well as more than 200 race wins.

Formula 1 design legend Adrian Newey is to join Aston Martin, the team has finally confirmed, tasked with spearheading the operation’s project under new regulations in 2026.

Newey has spent almost two decades with Red Bull Racing but announced earlier this year that he would be leaving the reigning world champions.

On Tuesday, at a press conference at its Silverstone headquarters, Aston Martin confirmed that Newey will be joining the team in March 2025. He will take up the newly-created role of Managing Technical Partner.

The 65-year-old Newey will also become a shareholder of the team.

“This is huge news,” said Aston Martin’s owner Lawrence Stroll. “Adrian is the best in the world at what he does—he is at the top of his game—and I am incredibly proud that he is joining the Aston Martin team.

“It’s the biggest story since the Aston Martin name returned to the sport and another demonstration of our ambition to build a Formula 1 team capable of fighting for world championships.

“As soon as Adrian became available, we knew we had to make it happen. Our initial conversations confirmed that there was a shared desire to collaborate in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Adrian is a racer and one of the most competitive people I have ever met.”

Newey’s History Is Unmatched

Newey is undoubtedly one of the greatest aerodynamicists in Formula 1 history, a visionary who can understand and exploit complex new technical regulations, with his designs often setting the trend for a generation.

Newey first came to the attention of Formula 1 in the late 1980s when he designed eye-catching cars for the underfunded Lleyton House team, and sealed a move to Williams.

Newey won titles with Williams in the early-mid 1990s, before revitalising McLaren’s fortunes in the late 1990s, and eventually moved to the midfield Red Bull team in 2006, a year after the energy drinks giant took over.

Under Newey’s leadership of the technical division Red Bull propelled itself into front-running contention under revised regulations in 2009, going on to win four straight titles.

New-for-2014 engine regulations facilitated Mercedes in surging to the front, with Red Bull’s predicament accentuated by then partner Renault struggling for reliability and performance, and Newey grew frustrated. But when Formula 1 reintroduced ground effect cars in 2022 it was Red Bull that stole a march on its rivals and last year its RB19 won 21 of 22 races, pulverising the previous record.

Cars with which Newey has had an association—either through being part of the design team or leading the design—have won 13 Drivers’ titles and 12 Constructors’ titles, as well as more than 200 race wins.

Red Bull’s struggles in 2024 have coincided with Newey scaling back his day-to-day involvement with the technical team; Red Bull have played down the connection, insisting the problems were inherent within the RB20, but irrespective of any correlation Newey is no longer proffering the advice and wisdom for which he is renowned.

The Final Piece for Aston Martin?

In announcing his move Newey said he had been “been hugely inspired and impressed by the passion and commitment that Lawrence brings to everything he is involved with” and that he is “is determined to create a world-beating team.”

Lawrence Stroll acquired the ailing Force India team in mid-2018 and made it clear that he wanted the team to eventually fight for the championship, with son Lance Stroll at the wheel of his car.

Stroll Sr has invested heavily, rebranding the squad as Aston Martin in 2021, and redeveloping its factory into a state-of-the-art technology campus.

The main building of its new factory opened in mid-2023 while the remaining two buildings came online earlier this year, with its new wind tunnel set to be operational in the coming months.

Aston Martin will enter into an exclusive works partnership with Honda under new engine regulations in 2026, and has also formed a close technical relationship with current title sponsor Aramco.

Stroll has not been shy in using the checkbook to entice highly-regarded technical personnel to Aston Martin. In recent years, Dan Fallows has joined from Red Bull as Technical Director and Eric Blandin from Mercedes as Deputy Technical Director.

Enrico Cardile, formerly Ferrari’s Technical Director, will join as Chief Technical Officer in October, while former Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell will take up the role of Group CEO the same month.

The team has long been known as a midfielder punching above its weight—especially under its previous ownership—but there has been a gradual cultural shift to recognize its loftier ambitions.

Its strong start to 2023 showed the potential at Aston Martin, as Fernando Alonso scored podiums and the team was second-best for a swathe of the season, but its subsequent in-season slide and stagnation through 2024 has just as equally highlighted weaknesses within the operation.

It is a distant fifth in this year’s Constructors’ Championship and has scored just a single top five finish, often battling with RB and Haas as opposed to the front-runners ahead.

In Alonso it has a two-time champion, still hungrily determined to contend for the ultimate prize, and a remarkable competitor aged 43, though time waits for no man.

It will be the first time that Alonso and Newey have worked together in Formula 1.

Stroll, now in his eighth season in the championship, still shows sporadic flashes of pace but remains frustratingly error-prone and liable to too many anonymous weekends.

“The team has all the key pieces of infrastructure needed to make Aston Martin a world championship-winning team and I am very much looking forward to helping reach that goal,” concluded Newey.