Is Aston Martin’s £20m-a-year Adrian Newey good value? Lawrence Stroll reckons so

Adrian Newey could have gone anywhere – but he’s gone to Aston Martin, the Silverstone-based outfit which started life as Jordan Grand Prix 33 years ago. Part of the team is still on that same site, but the expanded part, the newly completed two-building Campus, tells of the team’s ambition under the ownership of Lawrence Stroll. So does Newey’s recruitment for a reported £20m per year, plus bonuses. Just prior to the press conference confirming Stroll’s capture of the greatest Formula 1 designer of his generation – maybe even of any generation – Stroll had his 800-odd staff gather in ‘The Street’ between two of the three factory buildings. When he confirmed Newey’s arrival to them, there was a cheer worthy of a football crowd.

Stroll had been pursuing Newey for years, just informal chats in hotel gyms or F1 social occasions. But it wasn’t until Newey’s confirmation in April that he intended to leave Red Bull, his home of 18 years, that Stroll went into full-on pursuit mode – which is an awesome thing to behold apparently when you are on the receiving end. “Lawrence’s passion, commitment and enthusiasm is very endearing and it’s very persuasive,” said Newey at the announcement, the first time in the sport’s history there has ever been a media event for the recruitment of an engineer.

But why wouldn’t there be? At the time of writing, his cars had won 211 grands prix and 12 world constructors’ championships, powered some of those lucky enough to get into one of his cockpits to 13 world drivers’ championships, from Nigel Mansell to Max Verstappen. Tellingly, he did this with three different teams, all of which received a major uplift in their performance shortly after he joined – and declined shortly after he left. He’s a way more important ingredient to success than any driver.

“Within the engineer’s brain is an artist’s perception. He can conjure ideas from the air”

What makes him so special? Within the engineer’s brain is an artist’s perception. He can conjure ideas from the air. But he’s also got a better grasp than anyone else of all the performance parameters, how they interrelate and how those relationships change. He can translate what his drivers tell him to the dynamics behind those sensations. He knows where all the levers are and how much to pull on each one at any given moment or set of regulations. To (mis)quote The Waterboys song, others see the crescent, he sees the whole of the moon. He’s also deeply competitive and at 65 is not ready yet to rest on his unmatched laurels.

Of course Lawrence Stroll was going to throw everything at recruiting him. The former clothing mogul is arguably the most ambitious man in an F1 paddock defined by ambition. He may have entered the sport to help his son Lance develop his racing career, but even though Lance is still on board, the ambition has gone way beyond that for Senior. If he’s going to be in F1, he’s in it to win – whatever it takes. The route to his F1 ambition – the Williams benefactor, the Aston Martin automotive purchase, the buying of the bankrupt Force India team and its rebranding as the F1 arm of Aston – is not really the important bit. If it hadn’t been that way, it would have been another. He’d have made it happen regardless.

He’s spent way more than he expected – “So much more,” he said at the launch, with a wry smile and shake of the head – but that’s just investment, not cost. That’s the way he sees it. To the question of Newey’s salary, his reply – “Whatever his cost, I guarantee he’s great value,” – neatly sums up that attitude.

What Newey’s joining also does is make the team incredibly attractive to other talent, as team principal Mike Krack explained to Sky F1 at the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix. “Everyone takes a confidence boost… We are just more attractive as a team now – for partners, drivers, engineers. It’s cool. When you are the fifth-best team – and we have not done well this year, we have to be honest with ourselves – you struggle to attract. Which is normal. If you look at what we’ve built in terms of buildings, infrastructure, there is something special happening at Silverstone but the only thing which matters is the result on track. If you do not bring them, it’s difficult. A shiny building doesn’t bring the people. We have work to do.”

But the tools are in place now to do it. Stroll’s ambition and approach was there long before Newey’s possible availability came onto the radar. Way before. Hence the rapid expansion of the team – from Racing Point’s 250 employees to over 800 in the space of six years, together with the massive facilities upgrade, appropriate to an entity transitioning from customer team to works partner with Honda. Stroll didn’t negotiate the detail of those developments, but very shrewdly brought in expertise.

Martin Whitmarsh – the former McLaren COO – made those commercial deals. He brought the Honda deal to fruition and planned the Campus to make it a world-class facility comparable to any ever seen in F1. He helped Stroll pull off the financing required. Now that those foundations are in place, Whitmarsh has stood down – to be replaced by Andy Cowell as a CEO able to maximise how they are exploited.

In these big moves, you can see Stroll’s vision. First the commercial foundations, then the facilities, and now the recruitment to maximise them. This isn’t only Stroll spending “so much more” than he had envisaged. Commercially, he believes it will pay off, that he is investing, not merely spending. But it will only pay off if the team succeeds on track. Every move along the way has been predicated on that ultimate success – and Newey is the final piece of the jigsaw in making that happen.

But there have been some big pieces recruited before him. Even without Newey’s arrival, Aston’s recruitment of technical heavyweights is the most aggressive that Formula 1 has seen since Mercedes brought together five former technical directors in preparation for the 2014 hybrid formula. And look how that turned out.

Two of the foundations of how Mercedes dominated for seven straight seasons were Andy Cowell and Bob Bell. Now they are working together again – at Aston. Cowell was recruited by Stroll as the new CEO shortly before Newey agreed to join. Quite possibly the greatest engine designer of his generation, with a track record comparable to Newey’s, he’s moved onto a new phase of his career with this appointment. But that experience and insight will surely be formidably powerful working in combination with Honda. He doesn’t actually start work at Aston until October. But he’s there as the overseer and organiser of everything and reports directly to Stroll. Newey joins as ‘managing technical partner’, will take a shareholding in the team and also reports directly to the boss.

That in fact was a big part in Newey joining Aston rather than Ferrari, McLaren – or any number of others who reached out. With Lawrence, he is dealing directly with the top man. “He’s unique in that sense today,” says Newey. “In that the team boss is the owner, like in the old days with Frank Williams or Ron Dennis.” Frédéric Vasseur is not the ultimate boss at Ferrari, McLaren is owned by the Bahraini group of investors, etc. That and the shareholding in the team has been a big draw for Newey – as indeed have the new facilities, which he first saw a few months ago when most of the staff was told to go off-site for a couple of hours as a secret guest was brought in to look around.

“It’s no easy thing to create on a greenfield site what Martin and Lawrence have created here,” says Newey, “to make a facility of this scale and have it have a really nice warm creative feel to it – after all that’s what we’re here for, to create good solutions with good communication between everyone who works here. I’ve seen some new buildings which haven’t quite fulfilled that.” That seems an obvious dig at Ron Dennis’s vision of the McLaren Technical Centre, a place Newey never warmed to.

He still hasn’t identified where his office space is going to be. That’s how new all this is. But when taking a second look around the place on the day of the press conference, his question of “Where will I work and sleep?” is an indicator of the level of commitment he intends to bring. This is a full-time role, more intense than his later years at Red Bull. It’s implicit in Stroll’s recruitment of Newey that it brings with it a big level of commitment, way beyond that of a consulting genius.

Asked what Newey’s responsibilities will be, Stroll replied, “He will be the leader of the technical team and [will be involved] in the company as a business, as a partner and shareholder. How the technical team is structured, Adrian is much better qualified than myself to do what he sees fit.”

But Newey doesn’t arrive there until April. Before then, it is going to be Andy Cowell’s job to pull things together in a way which will facilitate Newey’s easy transition into the role. He will be aided by executive director Bell, who has experience of maximising facilities and building good communications between departments, at both Renault and Mercedes.

“In any F1 team there are three principal technical departments,” says Newey. “Aerodynamics, mechanical design and vehicle performance dynamics. It will initially be a case of trying to get good symmetry between those three departments and with Honda on the PU side.”

He has a great depth of talent there to work with. Enrico Cardile, still serving his gardening leave as Ferrari’s technical director, joins as chief technical officer. Reporting to him is technical director Dan Fallows (who worked for many years with Newey at Red Bull). Luca Furbatto is engineering director, Tom McCullough performance director. Eric Blandin is the deputy technical director. These are all heavyweight technical personnel in their own right. Together with Newey, Cowell and Bell, it brings obvious comparison to the big build-up of forces at Mercedes in 2014. So is Aston Martin in place to crack the code of the new formula for ’26 in a similar way?

It’s not a ridiculous contemplation. Aside from everything else, Newey’s greatest breakthroughs have usually come when the regulations have changed in a major way. Think 1998 McLaren and 2009 Red Bull. But it’s perhaps a little early to expect Mercedes 2014 levels of steamrollering the opposition. This collection of individuals and expansion of facilities has happened in a shorter timeframe than those at Mercedes. It’s not quite as planned. It follows Stroll’s vision, but he started from a lower place than Ross Brawn at Mercedes was able to.

A lot of the relationships are newer and getting that collection of people to gel in a way that aligns everyone’s energy in the same direction is going to be part of Newey’s job – and team principal Krack’s. “We have to make the structure work,” says Krack, “get the best out of it. First of all from the point of view of roles and responsibilities, then from hard work. But first we have to do that homework, that we have the right allocation of responsibility. We have a lot of young people who’d like to join us now, to work with Adrian.

“If we are team players we will make it work. If we have too many personal interests, like thinking about yourself above the team, it will be more difficult. We are fortunate we have a good bunch of racers, all passionate, and that is uniting us, so we’ll have good grown-up conversations about how we are going to get the best out of everyone. Then it can work.”

It has come together as opportunities arose and Stroll’s commitment to the certainty that those opportunities would come if he did commit is now bearing fruit. “I believe when things are meant to be, they happen,” says Stroll, “and this was the time to be that Adrian joined us. I don’t believe there is another team as poised for the future as we are”.

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Aston’s galaxy of stars

 

Adrian Newey
(Managing technical partner)
Formative years at Fittipaldi and March led to unprecedented record of world title success at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. Reports directly to Lawrence Stroll.

 

Bob Bell
(Executive director – technical)
Northern Irish F1 veteran who joined McLaren in 1982. Went to Benetton in 1997, Jordan in 1999 and Renault in 2001. Worked with Andy Cowell at Mercedes 2011-14. Returned to Renault before arriving at Aston in ’24.

 

Andy Cowell
(Group chief executive officer)
Rose through the ranks of Cosworth during Stewart/Jaguar F1 era. Joined Mercedes-Ilmor – with short crossover with Newey before his move to Red Bull. Architect of Mercedes’ eight consecutive titles from 2014.

 

Mike Krack
(Team principal)
BMW background, then a Sauber engineer from 2001. Stints include time with BMW in DTM and Porsche in World Endurance Championship. Rejoined BMW, then named as Aston Martin team principal in 2022.

 

Enrico Cardile
(Chief technical officer)
Italian aerodynamicist who joined Ferrari in 2005, first on GTs, then in Formula 1 as head of aero development from 2016. Takes up his role at Aston Martin next year for his first F1 role away from Ferrari.

 

Luca Furbatto
(Engineering director)
First F1 experiences with BAR and Toyota before joining Newey-era McLaren. Chief designer at Toro Rosso for three years from 2011. After a spell at Manor, he joined Alfa-era Sauber. Recruited by Aston in 2022.

 

Tom McCullough
(Performance director)
Cut his teeth with Reynard in the 1990s, then joined Williams. Race engineer for Nico Hülkenberg, Rubens Barrichello and more. Briefly at Sauber, then landed
at Force India before its regeneration into Aston Martin.

 

Eric Blandin
(Deputy technical director)
French aerodynamicist who worked with Dan Fallows at Jaguar, then Red Bull. Left in 2009 for Ferrari, then joined Mercedes for hybrid era success. Head of aero from 2017. Joined Aston Martin in 2022.

 

Dan Fallows
(Technical director)
Joined Jaguar as a senior aerodynamicist in 2002. Brief spell at Dallara following Ford’s sale of the team, then returned under Red Bull ownership where he was a long-time ally of Newey. Left in ’22 to join Aston.