With the world of Formula One digesting the results from the pre-season testing in Bahrain, a certain F1 guru car designer slipped into the factory at Silverstone and took to his desk as one of the managing partners at Aston Martin.

Newey well known to be a introverted character will undergo and employee induction with the team over the coming days as he gets to know the team of creatives and engineers now under his management. Famous for his hadn’t drawn designs, rather than the computer fluid models used today, team boss Andy Cowell revealed they had secured from Red Bull a vital piece of equipment for their new head of all things technical.

Adrian is well know to prefer to stand at his easel style drawing board rather than sit in front of a computer screen and when he joined Red Bull in 2006 a problem occurred.

 

 

 

McLaren held Newey’s easel to ransom

Ron Dennis was difficult over releasing Newey’s drawing easel although after some hard bargaining, Red Bull paid for it to be released from Woking.

According to Aston Martin’s new team boss, Andy Cowell, this time there have been no complications in Newey extracting his much loved drawing board from Milton Keynes. “I could show you a photo, but there’s too many [media] to look at the image on my phone,” said Cowell. “But yes, his office is ready and the drawing board is there.”

Team owner Lawrence Stroll has made a massive $200m investment in the Aston Martin facilities at Silverstone and it will take time for Newey to familiarise himself with his new surroundings.

“Everybody is super excited to work with Adrian, his record speaks for itself,” adds Cowell. “We’re looking forward to welcoming him on-site and doing an induction for a new employee, which might be a little different.”

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Newey to help with improving 2025 Aston Martin car

Newey’s aptitude is legendary and Cowell admits he expects him to be up to speed in the near future with his primary focus on next year’s huge F1 rule changes. “We will start work by introducing him to the key engineering and technical players within our business.

“Showing him the business tools for engineering the car and then getting stuck into creating a 2026 car and helping with improvements on 2025. I am sure he will get the lay of the land a lot quicker than I did.”

With F1’s most successful car designer having won titles for three different teams across four decades, expectation is high he can repeat that feat again. Yet it was in his fifth year at Red Bull Racing before a Newey designed car from Milton Keynes was to claim a a double championship in 2010, something Adrian is well aware of and manages expectations.

“I’m just looking forward to it and what will be, will be,” he told the BBC’s Back at Base podcast. “The first target really is to get to know everybody here,” he continued, “understand how everybody works, and try to integrate myself with everybody.

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Alonso admits Aston Martin behind the curve

“It’s talking to the drivers, it’s talking to my fellow engineers, trying to bounce ideas off them. Getting that sort of creative flow going,” revealed Aston Martin’s head of technology.

As has been well trailed, Newey’s primary focus will be on the al new car design coming in 2026, although its inconceivable he will not offer advice on Aston Martins 2025 challenger. A lack of track time and a number of technical problems meant that this year’s Aston Martin looked unimpressive over the three days of the test.

Fernando Alonso sought to play down the fact that a number of analysts rated Aston Martin below the likes of Alpine, the Racing Bulls and the Williams cars and with the second lowest mileage in testing. “We’re looking forward to Australia,” said the double F1 champion. “The car is faster, the car and all the data that we have is correlating well and then we see more downforce in all the speeds and all the corners.”

Fernando admitted the gains were relative when compared to the other teams 2025 offerings, “but we will find out in Australia [where they are in the pecking order]. It’s crucial for us to put things in place, and to have a perfect synchronisation between everyone in the factory and correlation between the wind tunnel, our own wind tunnel, for the first time, and trackside.”

Red Bull F1 testing mystery

 

 

 

Fernando unsure of F1 pecking order

Alonso was evasive when asked about the probably pecking order following the sessions in Bahrain claiming, “I don’t know much because I didn’t look at the test. After lunch I was going back to the hotel and I was relaxing in the hotel and coming in at night for the meeting, so I know everything about our team and our testing programme.”

Referring to the second day he revealed, “I know that Sainz was first, but even today I don’t know who is first and second. I guess the top four teams, they will keep an advantage, especially at the beginning of the year, but let’s hope we can be closer and closer to them,” the Spaniard concluded.

As the ground effect era for F1 car design began in 2022, Aston Martin were the second best team a year later come the early part of the season. Alonso claimed six podiums in the first eight races, although he and the team slipped down through the standings as they failed to keep up with their in season car development.

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Newey has admitted that come 2026, Formula One may return to being an ‘engine Formula’ as it was when big changes came into effect in the sport back in 2014. To this end a crucial part of Newey’s role will be working with Honda who will supply Aston Martin from next year, in terms of integrating their power unit into his radical new chassis design.

Aston Martin’s new team boss, Andy Cowell, was credited with delivering the all conquering Mercedes power unit back in 2014. He has a reputation of being one of the best project managers in Formula One and together with Newey could prove a considerable force.

The task is huge at Aston Martin for Newey but the last time an F1 team came from nowhere to join the F1 elite, was following Adrian deciding to start from scratch with new team Red Bull Racing. Fourteen of his twenty five titles would ensure over the coming eighteen years.

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FIA to expand F1 weekend stewards panel

2024 was a year in Formula One where the referees of the sport took a higher profile than usual. Of course this was eclipsed by the last lap of the last race drama in 2021 but in general paddock talk of how the various decisions were being made made last year was a frequent.

A number of incidents between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, where both were punished on different occasions, exposed the secretive ‘F1 driver guide lines’ issued to the stewards each year by the FIA.

Max clearly understood the rule which defined who ‘owned’ the corner as was evident in Austin, Texas. There despite having been passed by Norris, his late dash for the apex of the corner in fact earned him the right to run the McLaren driver off the circuit…. READ MORE