Adrian Newey addresses major 'fear' as wife complaint revealed

Adrian Newey has revealed that a "fear of failure" is part of his motivation as he seeks to turn Aston Martin into F1 champions.

Newey is renowned as F1's greatest technical guru, playing a major role in winning 12 constructors’ championships and 14 drivers’ titles.

After 19 years with Red Bull, the scene of his greatest success as he helped Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen win four drivers' championships apiece, Newey chose to leave the Milton Keynes-based team, eventually moving on to Aston Martin to become its managing technical partner.

Following eight months at his drawing board in designing a car to the new F1 regulations, Newey's focus has already led to complaints by his wife, Amanda, but understandably so given Aston Martin has everything at its disposal to conquer F1.

Speaking in a video interview on behalf of one of its primary sponsors, Maaden, asked whether he was afraid of failure, Newey replied: "Some of the motivation is that fear of failure.

"I've tried to learn to use that constructively, because it's the difference between too much pressure, or pressure mismanaged, causing mistakes, versus leading to quite a focused and tunnel vision-like state.

"My wife, over the last three, four months, since I've joined the team, complains that I'm in a design trance, and I understand what she means, that I don't see left and right, and I'm probably not terribly sociable.

"What limited processing power I have is all concentrated on the task at hand, given these pressing deadlines. But that's not a state to stay in for too long, and that all sounds quite egotistical as well.

"It's really ultimately all about the team and how we work together."

Although heavily invested in the 2026 project, at this stage, with the cars just over two months away from hitting the track at the first pre-season, behind-closed-doors test in Barcelona at the end of January, Newey can offer no insight as to how he feels the team will perform.

Addressing expectations for next season, Newey said: "The honest answer is, I have absolutely no idea.

"We are in a period of transformation. As a team, we've grown rapidly. It's really in a settling-down phase, having grown hugely in numbers, we now need to settle everybody down, get them working well together.

"I've never been a believer in saying we will now achieve this or now achieve that. The satisfaction comes from working together to move forward. If we can achieve that in 2026, that will be the first tick."