Aston Martin CEO and Team Principal Andy Cowell has revealed the Silverstone-based Formula 1 squad is already benefitting from the Adrian Newey effect.
Newey set up office at Aston Martin’s Silverstone campus on March 3 in his new role as Managing Technical Partner.
Aston Martin is hedging its bets that Newey’s design genius will pay dividends as he’s been set to work pushing development of the team’s 2026 challenger.
Despite only being at the team for just 10 days, Cowell told select media including Motorsport Week ahead of the Australian Grand Prix that Newey is having a profound impact.
“Adrian’s been with us for 10 days now, I think, his first day was very low key,” Cowell began.
“He’s an engineer, he’s walked in, he’s picking up the 2026 regulations, understanding those regulations, getting into the detail of the work that we’ve been doing, understanding that, contributing to ideas, [using] the drawing board.
“I guess drawing boards don’t need firing up, do they? They don’t need plugging in, they just work and it’s a joy to work with Adrian.”
Cowell revels in Newey’s ‘vast’ F1 experience
Newey has been designing championship-winning F1 cars for over three decades and his knowledge has been a boon at Aston Martin.
More so than that, but Newey has already pinpointed areas where Aston Martin can improve development of its 2026 machine.
“His experience is vast, his hunger is huge,” Cowell said of his new colleague.
“And it’s just wonderful conversations about making fast race cars and the compromises that you have to make, the trade offs that you need to make, and building up good working relationships with the engineers that have been pushing the concept to date.
“There’s already a few areas, I’m smiling to myself, I won’t give you the detail, because I don’t want our opponents to know, but you know, there’s a couple of areas where already he’s saying, ‘can we just push that in this direction? Can we just do that?’
“And engineers, you know, mechanical engineers, composite engineers, are looking at it and going,’ yeah, okay, we’ll have a go’ and I think that’s the Adrian effect.
“He picks up on the areas where you should push them and everybody’s just embracing it.”
How Newey’s work is integrating at Aston Martin
Aston Martin has pinpointed 2026 as its opportunity to elevate its standing to the front of the F1 field.
The regulations next year are changing across powertrains, aerodynamics, chassis and tyres, which poses the opportunity for any of the 10 teams to capitalise.
Newey enacted a similar turn of fortune at Red Bull after a dramatic rule change between the 2008 and ‘09 seasons that prompted a prosperous run for his former employer.
Such is Aston’s focus on 2026, Cowell revealed that “So far, [Newey’s] focus has been entirely on the 26 car, busy drawing layouts on the 26 car.”
Another important part of Newey’s work at Aston Martin is his famous drawing board method.
Newey is famed for hand-drawing his F1 design concepts, holding on to what some may call an antiquated technique given CAD (Computer Aided Design) has ruled the roost for decades now.
But as Cowell explained, whatever the method, the importance is communicating ideas so that they can be produced.
“I guess it’s whether it’s a drawing board, whether it’s CAD, it’s taking creative 3D thoughts that are in your head, and communicating it to colleagues,” Cowell said.
“We all know how to read drawings. The screen’s 2D in CAD, although you can rotate to observe in 3D.
“Adrian’s drawing prowess is such that he draws sections so that you can see it in 3D and the world of aerodynamics works with pure aerodynamicists and also people that create 3D surfaces.
“So they’re experts in creating beautiful surfaces in the world of 3D. It’s just bringing all of that together and it’s having the flexibility to work with different media to download the creative thoughts in a human brain and collaborate together.
“It’s a big team of people. The aerodevelopment world isn’t one person. It’s this group of people communicating.”
READ MORE – Fernando Alonso: Adrian Newey ‘impact’ at Aston to be greater than Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari
