Aston Martin team boss Andy Cowell said Adrian Newey’s focus will be on the team’s 2026 car now that he has started work at its Silverstone factory.
After leaving Red Bull midway through last year, Newey, the most successful car designer in the sport’s history, was convinced to join Aston Martin by its billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll.
Stroll hopes to turn Aston Martin into a title contender under Formula 1’s new set of engine and aerodynamic regulations in 2026, and he sees Newey as a key piece of the puzzle.
“Adrian joining brings a huge amount of experience and a great competitive mindset, and the choice we have made at the moment is that Adrian is working on the 2026 car,” Cowell said. “He’s putting a lot of effort into that and understanding that.
“He’s been in the engineering office, looking at the 2026 regulations and working out the compromises needed to create a fast race car under the new rules.”
Teams have only been allowed to work on the aerodynamic aspects of their 2026 cars since the start of this year, meaning Newey can still have a significant influence on the overall design philosophy.
While the majority of his time will be spent on the 2026 car, Newey will still have some freedom to work on the 2025 car once the season is up and running.
“Maybe when we’ve learned where our car is, it’s strengths and weaknesses, in the opening races, he’ll come up with the odd development tweak for the 2025 car,” Cowell added.
“We’ve got a new wind tunnel and we have got a lot of equipment within the factory and we are trying to develop and build those tools so they all fit together and build the team, the team spirit, so that we’re focused on creating the fastest race car we possibly can.”
As of last week, Aston Martin opened its own state-of-the-art wind tunnel after years of using Mercedes’ facility in Brackley. Cowell is confident the new wind tunnel will come with multiple benefits that will manifest in performance on track.
“It’s been a big project with lots of people working on it, so it’s great to see it finally come online as our nominated wind tunnel for development work. It’s got some great technology in the measurement systems and within the model that goes in the tunnel.
“Having everything in one location, the aerodynamicists don’t even need to put a coat on to go to the wind tunnel now! Before, it was about loading the model into a van, driving it down a bumpy dual carriageway [to Mercedes’ factory in Brackley], and hoping it was still in the same condition at the other end.
“But the challenge everybody has of trying to understand what goes on with the aerodynamics on track, compared with the wind tunnel, compared with CFD – those three worlds that the aerodynamicists battle with, we believe this new wind tunnel gives us greater understanding and greater mechanisms for understanding the flow physics and the streams going over the car.”
