Adrian Newey working overtime with ‘lunch break’ contact about F1 2025 car

Adrian Newey has been working overtime since joining Aston Martin to help out with the team's 2025 F1 car.

Legendary F1 designer Newey started work at Aston Martin as their managing technical partner in March, having spent nearly two decades at Red Bull.

While Newey has primarily been focused on the looming regulation overhaul coming in 2026, it has been revealed that he has held “lunchtime conversations” about Aston Martin’s current car.

Newey is making his first appearance at a race in Aston Martin colours at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Sky Sports F1 pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz explained that Newey has been using his lunch break to check in with Aston Martin’s design team about the AMR25.

“Lunch breaks at Aston Martin are very important,” Kravitz said.

"It was cancelled for Lance Stroll’s crew but that car [was] ready and rolled out of the garage.

“Andy Cowell confirmed that the only contact Adrian Newey has had with the 2025 car with Aston Martin’s design team is at lunch breaks at the factory!

“It’s absolutely true. The team boss confirmed that Newey, between the hours of 9am to 12.30am, then 1.30pm to 5pm, is 2026 concentrated.

“But in his lunch break he sits down with people from 2025 and says ‘this car, I’ve had a thought…’

“That’s why the upgrades look so good!”

Adrian Newey’s ‘lunchtime conversations’ explained

Speaking to media including Crash.net in Monaco, Aston Martin CEO and team principal Andy Cowell elaborated on Newey’s involvement with the team’s 2025 challenger.

"So when Adrian joined at the beginning of March we said 'right, we need Adrian to focus on 2026 and the architecture of the car', which is what he's primarily been focused on," Cowell explained.

"Lunchtime conversations have not just included what he's eating or what he's been doing on the weekend. It also included conversations about our existing car - the '25 car - and what might be issues but it's a separate engineering team that has been working on the '25 car.

"As he's been working on the '26 car he gets to see the tools that we've got, specifically CFD, wind tunnel, the whole journey of information from the drawing board to wind tunnel results, and with that we learn about what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses and how do we maintain our strengths? And improve our weaknesses.

"He's been doing that within the factory. This weekend, he's here and he will see the way we operate in a race weekend environment. The way we optimise the car. We've got the way we play a different strategy so having his experience and insight looking to see what's going well, what's not so well, just helps with our jobs on what to work on to become a stronger team."

Asked how hands-on Newey has been in the garage, Cowell replied: “He's got his notebook, he’s looking intently at what's going on.

“The pencil's been scribbling in there. He and I have had the odd conversation, and the jobs list gets bigger, but it's all good positive actions to help us move forward.”