Aston Martin CEO and Team Principal Andy Cowell is executing his vision of efficiency at the Silverstone-based Formula 1 squad following a series of organisational changes.
Cowell succeeded Martin Whitmarsh as CEO in October and was thus handed the task in enacting Team Owner Lawrence Stroll’s vision of transforming Aston Martin into a championship calibre outfit.
After witnessing the conclusion of a disappointing 2024 campaign, Cowell enacted a leadership restructure of the Aston Martin squad, splitting the team’s Aerodynamics, Engineering and Performance Departments into separate trackside and factory units.
Chief Technical Officer Enrico Cardile will manage the factory-based department and Mike Krack will lead the trackside team in a new role: Chief Trackside Officer.
Both men will report to Cowell who assumed the mantle of Team Principal amid the organisational changes made public last week.
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Cowell understands what it means to win titles in F1 and as Managing Director of Mercedes AMG HPP from 2013 he helped contribute massively to the Silver Arrows double-championship run from 2014 through 2020.
Upon joining Aston Martin in October, Cowell said that clearly defined roles are key to success.
“The thing you realise when you have a little bit of time to reflect is what it is that interests you, and, for me, it’s efficiency,” Cowell told media in 2024.
“The thing that I hated was wasting time, so if, as an organisation, it wasn’t efficient, that made me grumpy.
“So I’ve used that approach with some other industries and some other topics [during my four years out].
“I guess that’s what I’m going to try and do for Aston Martin as well, to look at aero efficiency.
“The organisation, how do we get it so that the 900 people at Silverstone are organised well, so that their day is efficient?
“It makes me grumpy if there’s an overlap of responsibility, it makes me grumpier still if there’s a gap and there’s a lack of communication.
“How do we get 900 people to work efficiently, so it’s like one brain? Writing reports and having meetings, I’m not too keen on that sort of thing.”
How will Aston Martin manage its technical leaders?
Cowell’s restructuring has created two clearly defined roles for Krack and Cardile.
Cardile will be responsible for leading the development of the best F1 machine possible at Silverstone and Krack will be responsible for extracting the best possible results from it on track.
It’s also clear that both will be held account by Cowell, but with Managing Technical Director Adrian Newey set to arrive in March, how will this fourth piece fit into the technical puzzle and will there be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen at Aston Martin?
Cowell’s counterpoint to this potential head-scratcher is his experience at Mercedes.
“I think I remember Mercedes Grand Prix, pulling together a gaggle of impressive technical directors, and it working out okay on that run into 2014,” Cowell said.
However, it’s worth noting that a leadership team of Toto Wolff, Paddy Lowe and Ross Brawn went down from three to two when the latter of the trio departed at the end of 2013, a few months after Lowe arrived at Mercedes.
A ‘huge amount of work to be done’ at Aston Martin – Cowell
A new leadership structure and a new factory and wind tunnel are coming together at Aston Martin a year ahead of the 2026 rules change.
2026 coincides with Aston Martin becoming a works team with Honda power and there’s been plenty of talk from the organisation that next year is the time for success.
However, Cowell has acknowledged there’s a “huge amount of work to be done” to make Aston Martin a winner.
“We’re quite a young organisation,” he said.
“Going all the way back to the Jordan days, it’s a couple of decades but the change to being a team that’s targeting being at the front and operating with that level of facility and resource is only recent.
“There are lots of things to do – whether it’s setting up our own wind tunnel and all the facilities that are required to do that, whether it’s making a gearbox to go on the back of the Honda power unit for 2026, simulation tools and getting those to be class-leading – there’s a huge amount of work to be done.
“If you’ve got senior leaders that can each take one of those big challenges and focus on it, then we’ll get to the front quicker.”
Organisational changes key to success at Aston Martin
Cowell comments on how to make Aston Martin a success continued to come back to organisation and leadership.
It was clear upon his appointment that he felt that changes in the structure of the leadership team, which have now been made, were key to hitting Aston Martin’s targets.
“What I want to do is make the organisational changes that I think will help all of us going forward, so that there’s not only office space and a desk and a chair and a drawing board ready, but there’s also a structure that’s got their name in it,” he said.
“So my ambition is that their very first day in the factory is a working day, not reflecting and making change day. So I see that as my role as the CEO.”
2024, by many metrics, was a step backwards for Aston Martin but the most important one was points scored: 186 less than the year before.
“I think we’re disappointed where we are,” Cowell said last year, before going on to explain that everyone within Aston Martin was aware things need to improve in all areas.
“Everybody is – I haven’t met anybody that’s living in a bubble of happiness thinking that we’re achieving greatness,” he continued.
“It’s everywhere we need to get better. There isn’t a single area of the business that is saying to me, ‘We’re perfect. We’re ready to win championships’.
“Everywhere is saying, ‘Yeah, we could do this, that’s better. We’d like to do this’.
“This is our road map to get to a place where we think we’re great. So there isn’t a single area that is perfect yet, and we will probably never reach perfection because we’ll always come up with better ways to improve every single department of the business.
“My job is to create a team. In a team, everybody knows what their role is. They know their position on the pitch, and my job is to discuss with each of those players what they could do to get better.
“It’s not telling them. It’s just instilling a high-performing atmosphere of doing something, learning from that experience, and thinking of new ideas, and going again.”
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