Shock Adrian Newey F1 promotion raises eyebrows at Red Bull

Red Bull’s Helmut Marko has expressed his surprise at Aston Martin’s decision to make Adrian Newey their new team principal.

Ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, Aston Martin confirmed that Newey will takeover as team principal from the 2026 F1 season, with current CEO and team boss Andy Cowell moving into a new role.

66-year-old Newey will combine the position of team principal with the managing technical partner role he has held since joining Aston Martin from Red Bull earlier this year.

It will mark the first time in the legendary F1 designer’s illustrious career that he will hold the title of team principal.

But the move has come as a shock to Newey’s former Red Bull colleague Marko.

“That really surprised me,” the 82-year-old Austrian is quoted as saying by Kleine Zeitung.

“We'll have to see how that plays out in practice.”

Marko continued: “That's certainly not his strength. His great strength lies in design, car tuning, and the quality of production and development.

“But it has surprised me greatly that he will now be moving more towards team management.”

The right move for Newey and Aston Martin?

Fernando Alonso described Newey’s appointment as team boss as being the “normal logical step” in Aston Martin’s quest to become world champions.

"It's good news," the two-time world champion said on Thursday in Qatar. "He was already managing the technical development of the car, but also the team, you know, [overseeing] the people that was needed and taking care of which areas we need to reinforce the team and which other areas were less important.

“So in a way he was doing internally a lot of management. And Andy was doing a lot of management as well on the engine side and engine integration to the chassis.

"So it was maybe a normal logic step into 2026. So we have probably the two best people, one doing the chassis and the team, one on the engine integration and the team as well.

“And we have a very strong leader with Lawrence with, you know, the determination that Lawrence has and the commitment that he's shown for many, many years already.

“Between the three of them I think we are in good hands. So let's move into 2026 with hopefully a better car.”

Marko is not the first to question Aston Martin’s decision.

Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft also found the move surprising.

“Their press release at Aston Martin said ‘this will play to Adrian’s strengths’ but Adrian has been brought in to lead the design team and to build success by designing cars, not sitting in an F1 Commission meeting sorting out HR problems,” Croft explained.

“That’s the job of a team principal but not the job that Adrian has been brought in to do. So how does that play to his strengths? There’s a big senior leadership team at Aston Martin who will pick up the slack I’m sure, but I still see this as very much a temporary thing.

“As great as Adrian has been in Formula 1, did you have him down as a team principal on your radar? Is this something he has expressed a desire for in the past? I’m not sure he has.”