Aston Martin highlight 'mighty' Adrian Newey influence as 2026 F1 ambitions loom

Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell has praised the early impact Adrian Newey has had on the team.

Newey joined the Silverstone-based squad as its technical director this year following a lengthy and successful stint with Red Bull.

The Briton is renowned as one of the greatest car designers in the history of the sport, with his cars winning 12 constructors' and 14 drivers' championships.

Newey has not been a consistent presence trackside this year as he takes on a majority of his work at the Silverstone factory.

His last appearance came at the British Grand Prix, where Cowell revealed he opted to make a last-minute schedule change in order to continue his design work.

“We’d planned for Adrian to be at the circuit on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Cowell exclusively told RacingNews365.

“On Wednesday night, he said ‘You know what? I'm going to be in the factory on Thursday. There are some bits that I want to scheme and create’.

“It was the same on Friday, the same on Saturday morning. He came along for qualifying and he came along for the race.

“That shows his level of focus on 2026 and the contribution to 2026.”

Newey is having zero influence on the current Aston Martin challenger as he places his focus on next year's car, which is being constructed under a new set of technical regulations.

Cowell detailed how Newey has thrown himself into the project as Aston Martin hope to start the sport's new era in a competitive position.

“He’s got a drawing board in the office and a team of people who provide support to that,” Cowell said.

“There’s also a drawing board at home. It’s not about dropping his laptop into his bag and going home, it’s rolling up some drawings and going home.

“Since the beginning of March, his commitment to regulation, understanding and contribution to the architecture of the 2026 car is huge. His work ethic is really, really impressive.”

Despite being in the role for less than six months, Cowell stated Newey's impact is already being felt on other team members.

“His attention to detail across all disciplines of the car is mighty, which is great,” he said.

“That rubs off. That percolates through the whole business, chatting to people in the model build area adjacent to the wind tunnel.

“We’re making changes to the model quicker than we've ever done before which is largely because of the investment, but also because of the drive of the number of iterations that's coming through from Adrian and the team around him.

“We want to run all of those in the wind tunnel before we commit to the architecture for 2026. If you want to do more in a fixed period of time, you've got to do it quicker.

“It’s minute by minute planning as to how that can be achieved and chatting to the guys, saying, ‘it's great to see what's been done, well done’.”