Aston Martin’s expected confirmation later this morning that it has signed design legend Adrian Newey is a game-changing moment for the team.
If there is one individual who has a bit of a midas touch, then Newey would be your prime candidate, having helped guide his three most recent teams (Williams, McLaren and Red Bull) to multiple championship successes. His tally of 12 constructors’ titles, with 13 drivers’ championships having been won in his cars, says all you need to know about his influence.
But success in F1 is never down to just one individual. The greatest geniuses in the world will never achieve success if they do not have the right people and infrastructure around them. Even someone as brilliant as Newey needs access to the most modern facilities and technology, and to have around them a strong calibre of staff who can manifest ideas and guidance into reality.
This is something that Newey himself will have been more than well aware of, and it probably explains a great deal about why he wanted a factory visit – taking place in secret before the Spanish Grand Prix – to see for himself just what Aston Martin could offer.
So is Aston Martin, which is enduring a pretty challenging season on track right now, in a position to give Newey the environment he needs to thrive?
Newey would not pretend for one second that he is a one-man band who can miraculously get parachuted into a team and, all by himself, design, create, manufacture and build a race-winning car.
His strength is in acting as the powerhouse for all the brains of a team – outlining a global vision for the car that has its elements then realised by those working around him.
It’s not for him to design every last nut and bolt of an F1 car, but he’s there to think bigger picture, challenge areas he thinks are not up to his standards, and stay one step ahead of the opposition.
As Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache said about Newey’s input there: “On a daily basis, he’s not part of our process. He’s more coming from the sideways and trying to help us or challenge us on different aspects of the team – it could be mechanical design, aero or vehicle dynamics."
For Newey to succeed in such a role, he needs a strong team around him who can manifest his vision – and be trusted to get on with what he wants. He had that at Red Bull, and Aston Martin certainly seems to have put the right calibre of people in place to deliver it for him there too.
In technical director Dan Fallows, he has someone he worked well with previously at Red Bull, and with quality talent like engineering director Luca Furbatto, new signing Enrico Cardile, executive director Bob Bell and incoming CEO Andy Cowell, there is a wealth of race-winning talent that can be well utilised.
Some have suggested it could be a struggle to fit Newey into what appears to be quite a complicated structure, but Aston Martin sees things differently: the depth of talent is something that can help Newey get the best out of himself.
Team principal Mike Krack said: “I think Formula 1 these days is so broad. It is not like you have to make huge changes.
“I think there was a time when there was a team that had seven technical directors in the past, so I think we are very far from that. I think someone like that, you have to make any kind of effort to integrate and adjust your structure to get the best out of it.”
In terms of tools at his disposal, Newey’s likely start time of next spring fits perfectly as well.
Aston Martin is already well bedded in at its new state-of-the-art Silverstone factory. There is no doubt that there was a disruptive phase to the move from its old former Jordan factory to the new building, but that is now well in the past.
More crucially, by the time Newey joins, Aston Martin’s wind tunnel will be fully up and running. Furbatto explained recently that the new tunnel was ready to go online but would need some months of commissioning to make sure that it is fully accurate before proper work begins.
“There will be a time when you have to do what's called commissioning, so to make sure that the flow that is hitting the model is what we want and so on,” he said. “That will take maybe two or three months to get that sorted. And I think it will be ideally suited to start the development of the 2026 car, which is allowed from January 2025.”
That is a time frame that fits in ideally for Newey’s arrival, as both he and the team will be able to hit the ground running from day one.
There is also another good aspect to the timing of Newey’s arrival: he is joining a squad that still has scope to change and evolve around him, as nothing is set in stone. There is no doubt that Aston Martin is a team that is growing and developing itself, so is in a different cycle to more established outfits like Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.
As Furbatto explained: “Well, I think you should not underestimate the fact that as a team, we are developing a car, but also developing facilities.
“Imagine you've got a budget cap and, let's say, you can afford 1000 people. If you're Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, or McLaren, for example, you've got established facilities.
"It's a matter of effectively fitting the car in the tunnel or running on the rig and so on. But in our case, we are developing a facility at the same time, so a percentage of the engineers are working on making sure that we've got a state-of-the-art wind tunnel. We have to commission the tunnel. We've got to dial in facilities.
“So if you take the analogy of the 1000 people, maybe 800 are working on the car and 200 are working developing the facilities. I think that will get much better, because [factory] buildings two and three are finished, and now we've got the tools available. Hopefully we see positive results in 2025 but I think our biggest effect will be in 2026.”
All of these elements of staff and tools combine to suggest that, by next spring, Newey will find around him exactly what he needs to thrive. And these are the same things that have convinced Fernando Alonso that Aston Martin is the right place to be – even if he knows it will take time.
“I think there are some ideas and some evidence of things that we did right, things that maybe we didn't understand at the first go,” explained the Spaniard recently.
“I'm confident we have the talent in the team, we have the motivation, we have now the new factory, and we have new people coming as well. It's just, unfortunately, Formula 1, you cannot change things from night to day, but we will not stop working until we get in a competitive position.”
