How Adrian Newey is pushing the boundaries at Aston Martin

Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell has revealed how newly-appointed technical director Adrian Newey is already “pushing the boundaries” of Formula 1 car design in his new role.

Newey joined Aston Martin in March following a long stint at Red Bull, where his designs powered both Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to four world championships each.

The British engineer is renowned for continuing to use a physical drawing board in an era dominated by digital tools, recently describing himself as the “last dinosaur in the industry.” 

But beyond his traditional working methods, Newey is equally famous for his obsession with ultra-tight packaging to maximise aerodynamic performance - an approach he has brought with him to Silverstone.

He is currently spearheading development of Aston Martin’s Honda-powered 2026 car, the first to be built under F1's new chassis and power unit regulations.

“The new facilities just help us have everything at our fingertips,” Cowell explained.

“Having the aerodynamicists a short stroll away from the model build area and the wind tunnel section just helps speed everything up.

“Having Adrian join us since March, firing up the drawing board, and the machine that is required downstream of that, has just added some extra impetus to what we're doing for '26.

“At the start of this week, we had both Fernando [Alonso] and Lance [Stroll] in the wind tunnel section with the model and Adrian. Adrian was talking about the features on the model.

“Adrian, as I'm sure Christian [Horner] remembers, he pushes the boundaries. He packages ten things into the space where only one would normally fit, and all the engineers see that as a challenge. It's not just the engineers. It's the whole group of people within the aerodynamics development area.

“The pace with which we're creating changes on the '26 wind tunnel model is quicker than we've ever done before. It really is very impressive. It is like watching 100 people all run 100 metres sub-ten seconds, with perfect baton passes.

“It's very exciting to see and all of that is enabled by having the facilities, and the people and the methods. So yeah, it's an exciting journey into '26.”

Hiring Newey is widely seen as the final piece for Aston Martin’s long-term vision, which has invested significant resources in building a new factory at its Silverstone campus.

The team is also prioritising continuity, with both Alonso and Stroll already contracted through 2026.

This is allowing the team, particularly Newey, to focus on defining the overall concept of the car for F1’s new era.

“We're super fortunate. We've got this exciting run into '26," Cowell said. "Changing the power unit – we're working with Honda on that – changing the aerodynamics, we've got Adrian working on that, we've got new facilities.

“But the stability that we've got in having Lance and Fernando signed up for next year means that they're not only helping us now develop the tools that we're using for '26, '27 and beyond, but they're working directly on the concept of the car.

“The discussions in the wind tunnel are about the aerodynamic shape, but they're also about driver environment. How much space is there in the cockpit?

“Adrian tends not to leave much space in the cockpit. Everything's exceptionally tight. But that stability of having two drivers signed up through into '26 is really helping us.”