Adrian Newey points to key area where Aston Martin must improve
Adrian Newey shares first impressions on Aston Martin F1 team in new interview.
Legendary F1 car designer Adrian Newey has offered his first impressions of his new Aston Martin team.
F1’s most-successful designer Newey started work in his new role as managing technical partner at Aston Martin in March after almost 20 years at Red Bull.
The 66-year-old Briton has largely been factory-based and is tasked with focusing on F1’s major rules change for 2026, when Aston Martin hope to take a leap forward in the pecking order.
Aston Martin’s billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll has lofty ambitious to win world titles in the future and the capture of Newey was seen as a huge statement of intent in that journey.
Speaking in an interview published on Aston Martin’s website, Newey pinpointed the main areas the Silverstone-based squad need to strengthen if they are to become frontrunners.
"Lawrence's vision has created a great facility – the best facility in F1 – but it is important that we now optimise how we use it," Newey said.
“My previous team had one of the worst wind tunnels in F1 and operates out of an unremarkable series of buildings on an industrial estate, but it managed to get everybody working together and developed a great group of people.
"We have many talented people – also a few areas that need strengthening with greater numbers – and we need to get everyone working together better, using these tools and developing our abilities.
“F1 is about people. Yes, there is a lot of technology, but it's people who drive things forward.”
Aston Martin’s aero department needs to grow
Newey feels Aston Martin’s aerodynamics department must grow in numbers for the team to realise their potential.
"It's always difficult when you have a big regulation change like this and all teams are resource-limited, because of the budget cap and simply because of staffing levels," he explained.
"One area of our team that needs to grow is the aerodynamics department. But in the short term that means we've got to decide which directions are going to be the most fruitful and really concentrate our resources on those.
"Of course, in doing that, there’s always a danger that we've missed an avenue. Quite often, you have to go a long way down a certain branch before you know whether it's going to be a fruitful one or not.
"I never like to say to a fellow engineer that they shouldn't pursue something, but given the short timescales, in this case, I have to do that.”
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