Aston Martin team principal and CEO Andy Cowell insists the Silverstone-based squad would be having a better year in F1 had it guided Adrian Newey's focus towards its 2025 car.
As part of an exclusive interview with RacingNews365, the Briton explained why the decorated designer and aerodynamicist has been directed specifically towards its 2026 project, and what impact that has subsequently had on the current campaign.
Newey officially joined the team at the start of March as managing technical director after almost two decades with Red Bull, but has paid no attention to Aston Martin's existing car, the AMR25, with all his resources steered at next season, when F1 is overhauling both its chassis and power unit regulations.
With extensive investment by owner Lawrence Stroll in recent years, which includes: capturing high-profile recruits like Newey; a works power unit partnership with Honda; and heavily upgraded or entirely new facilities, Aston Martin is one of the teams in F1 with the most intense focus on 2026 and beyond.
Therefore, it has opted to sequester Newey, who was designed chassis which have won 14 drivers' championships and 12 constructors' titles since the early 1990s, to the next generation of F1, which is looming large over the rest of the season.
The rationale for this sacrifice, as Cowell puts it, is that "the investment will pay off over more racing seasons", but the 56-year-old is adamant Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll would be enjoying a stronger car and better results had Newey addressed the idiosyncrasies of the AMR25.
"This year is hugely challenging because we're here, and what we really want is to have the quickest car," Cowell said. "And if '26 wasn't there, we would definitely have a quicker car today.
"If, from the first of March, Adrian had put all his efforts into improving the '25 car, [I'm] absolutely certain that we would be further up the grid today.
"But we're not doing that, we're focusing on '26 onwards, because the investment will pay off over more racing seasons, over more events.
"And that's challenging. On a Sunday evening... Saturday after qualifying, Sunday after a race, we're not happy. Monday morning, we're not happy. And then you get into the jobs list, and crack on."
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Shooting for the stars
Expectations are, therefore, understandably, high ahead of the rules reset. This is not helped by the sense throughout the F1 paddock that Aston Martin has underperformed over the past couple of seasons.
After starting 2023 as the surprise package of the year, with Alonso capturing six podiums in the opening eight rounds, the team has been mired in the mid-pack ever since.
Fifth in the constructors' standings that campaign was followed by a more distant and considerably less impressive fifth in 2024.
This term, in large part due to its significant focus on 2026, the team is clinging on to sixth, but had it not been for a strong fifth-and-seventh-place finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where Cowell sat down with RacingNews365, the picture would look less favourable.
Nonetheless, despite Aston Martin's optimism surrounding the new era of F1, it does not mean the team is not still striving to be competitive, even if the frustrating nature of the championship means it can only develop in a certain way and at a certain pace.
When asked if the elder Stroll, who has high expectations for the team of his own, wants things to move more quickly than they have, Cowell explained that whilst everyone at the Silverstone squad does, there is a higher premium placed on ambition over achievement at the moment.
"Every single day we get up, we aspire to get a huge amount done, and we go to bed having achieved most of it, but rarely all of it," he said.
"If you achieve a plan bang on schedule, you probably put a bit of comfort in there.
"I am absolutely from the school of: you shoot for the stars, and therefore you clear the trees.
"You set those aspirational targets, you strive for perfection. But it's an ambition, rather than what you ever achieve - and that's kind of what I enjoy, and I think what Lawrence [Stroll] enjoys."
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