Adrian Newey is now considered one of the finest Formula One engineers ever to grace the sport. With 26 drivers’ and constructors’ championships under his belt, the man from Essex is legendary for his old school approach to designing an F1 car with his artist’s style easel and charcoal pencils which create the sketches which go on to dominate motor racing.
Newey left Red Bull last year after almost two decades of steering the direction of the technical team. He decided to join Aston Martin after team owner Lawrence Stroll offered him complete control over all matters technical and a wedge of equity in the iconic British Racing marque.
He has been tasked primarily with creating a competitive 2026 car for the Silverstone based team and with the arrival of Honda as a ‘works’ partner, Aston Martin are tipped to be one of the top teams when the cars hit the track in January.
Newey’s infamous grid “prowl”
There has been over £200m invested in the infrastructure of Aston Martin, with state of the art facilities now complete, together with a new wind tunnel and modelling software which the team expect to export the the max.
In the 21st century world of F1 where time is no one’s friend, Newey remains faithful to his principals which include examining his rivals creation’s in person. F1 “spy photography” has been a huge business for more than a decade, with team’s employing dedicated photographers to take pictures ion their rivals racing prototype to discover the secrets locked away.
Yet despite this technology, Adrian Newey prefers the ways of old. Whilst he’s not been at many of the races this season, he is infamous for his ‘grid prowl’ before the start of the Grand Prix. He wanders amongst the rival racing prototypes with his clipboard and pencil in hand. Now Newey reveals the reason for his actions on Grand Prix Sunday and addresses the matter of the teams investing in spy photography.
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3D is better than 2D
“I think all teams have effectively, spy photographers,” says Newey. “Generally speaking, the other teams know who those spy photographers are, and run around trying to cover things up.
“In digital photography, you end up with God knows how many thousands of pictures each race weekend. You then try to use whatever software to categorise them, etc. But nevertheless, you’ve got this huge amount of photographs, which you could easily spend the next week looking through, if you weren’t careful.”
Newey argues his grid prowl is invaluable because the photographs he receives are of course in 2D and are often not quite at the angle he requires to understand the implications of the components he’s observing “Secondly, it’s just time efficient, to be perfectly honest. I’ve hopefully got enough of an eye that I can spot something of interest, but by looking at it in 3D… I would spend ages trying to find that in a 2D series of 2000 photos, or whatever it might be.”
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Aston Martin F1 tools failing to correlate
Aston Martin’s poor F1 season reveals that Newey has indeed been predominantly working on the 2026 project, yet there are concerns that Aston Martin may be handicapped despite their state of the art new facilities. When asked earlier this summer about his hopes of challenging for honours next season, new was cautious in his assessment.
“I think it is fair to say that some of our tools are weak, particularly the driver in the loop simulator. It needs a lot of work because it’s not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool. Not having that is a limitation.
“But we’ve just got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be. But that’s probably a two-year project in truth.” When pressed on how much of a handicap this is, Newey claimed it was difficult to quantify.
“Driver in loop simulators” are crucial in the F1 design and build process given their multiple applications to the technical team. Firstly, they are a research mechanism which pools many of the other design tools together when modelling a theoretical car.
Newey argues the old ways are the best
Secondly they are vital when to comes to race weekends. The teams which can model the upcoming race track the best, tends to see their cars arrive in the set up window and require little adjustment from thereon. This is massively important for Sprint weekends, where there is just one hour of free practice before the competitive on track sessions begin. “So we’re going to be a bit blind on that for some time. We have just got to try to use experience and best judgement. How successful that will be, time will tell,” Newey added.
In his vast experience, Adrian claims that Aston Martin has the best factory facilities he’s ever seen in Formula One, adding: “And the wind tunnel is arguably the best wind tunnel in F1. Wind tunnels nowadays are quite complicated tools, so it’s still in a development process. Productivity is not quite there, because we are still kind of working through it.
“But ultimately, wind tunnels are a bit like engine dynos. You need them and a really good wind tunnel, of course, you’d rather have that compared to a not so good wind tunnel. But ultimately, it’s not really the thing that makes the difference. It’s the human element. It’s the design you put into it.”
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Newey is old school yet has recently produced the most dominant car in F1 history. The RB19 won all but one race in 2023, yet there’s a risk time and technology may be catching up on the grand meister of F1 car design. McLaren who have been dominant this season have been using AI partner Encord to help in thei design process of their car.
Alexandre Bonnet, the Lead ML Solutions Engineer for Encord revealed earlier this year that AI is being used in “the actual vehicle designs, things like the biomimicry stuff that’s come out over the last few years, all through to the actual televisation, that is, again, a whole other round of computer vision and AI work that’s going on.”
“F1 teams are specialised in car manufacturing and of course, they do have in-house AI talent but they do also need to draw on that external expertise of the most up to date and innovative machine learning systems, I think it is a symbiotic relationship in that sense.” she concludes.
Will Newey bend his old fashioned ways to utilise the 21st century technology and AI, or will Aston Martin be the disappointing final curtain call on a career which to date has been star studded?
F1’s first lap ‘free for all’ should be SCRAPPED – says ex-F1 driver
The 2025 formula One Mexican Grand Prix has reignite the debate over what many consider to be the sport’s first lap ‘free for all.’ At the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez several drivers failed to make turn one taking to escape roads and even the grass in what George Russell described as the annual “lawnmower race.”
With the longest run to the first corner on the calendar, the Mexican Grand Prix repeatedly sees this kind of mayhem at the start of the Grand Prix each year but there are those who want to see a clap down on drivers who allegedly are taking ‘liberties’ knowing there will be no consequences.
So let’s look at the apparent crimes committed. Max Verstappen starting in fifth place got a rocket launch and was past the Mercedes of George Russell before the cars were even half way to turn one and up to fourth. With the two Ferrari’s duelling with each other he was forced to the left and then again as Hamilton found space between his team mate and Lando Norrios who held the inside line…. READ MORE
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Andrew oversees editorial standards and contributes to the site’s Formula 1 coverage. A career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media, Andrew trained in investigative journalism and has written for a range of European sports outlets.
At TJ13, Andrew plays a central role in shaping the site’s output, working across breaking news, analysis, and long-form features. Andrew’s responsibilities include fact-checking, refining editorial structure, and ensuring consistency in reporting across a fast-moving news cycle.
Andrew’s work focuses particularly on the intersection of Formula 1 politics, regulation, and team strategy. Andrew closely follows developments involving the FIA, team leadership, and driver market dynamics, helping to provide context behind the sport’s biggest stories.
With experience covering multiple seasons of Formula 1’s modern hybrid era, Andrew has developed a detailed understanding of how regulatory changes and competitive shifts influence the grid. Andrew’s editorial approach prioritises clarity and context, aiming to help readers navigate complex developments within the sport.
In addition to editorial duties, Andrew is particularly interested in how media narratives shape fan perception of Formula 1, and how reporting can balance speed with accuracy in an increasingly digital news environment.
