Adrian Newey is the Leonardo da Vinci of the Formula One paddock, the design genius who sees things with a clarity others do not.
His new Aston Martin office is a glass cube at the centre of the design floor, which commands a view of the whole and a dramatic sweep of the Rose of the Shires, as those in Northamptonshire like to describe it.
On the floor below, concepts are realised via a best-in-class engineering facility that churns out car parts at an unprecedented rate with laser precision.
The i Paper was part of an intimate gathering at the team HQ last week to hear from key figures behind the team’s ambitious quest for supremacy.
Aston Martin has gone through many iterations since Eddie Jordan planted a bright yellow flag on this site 34 years ago, subsequently serving Midland, Spyker, Force India and Racing Point before assuming its current branding in 2021.
The house that Eddie built is subsumed within Canadian entrepreneur Lawrence Stroll’s £200m new palazzo, the old footprint swamped by an edifice extending across 400,000 square feet. The development is completed by the ultimate F1 accelerator, a pin-new wind tunnel intended to propel Aston amongst the elite.
All of this is the vision of one man, a Nero-esque empire-builder who flies in by helicopter from his London base once a week.
Stroll is seeking to reconnect Aston Martin with the kind of camp elegance conferred by peak James Bond, to remind Ferrari of the primacy of British cool and make British racing green the sport’s default colour once more. He has so far sunk an estimtaed £525m into the project.
In this era of manufacturer dominance this is arguably as mad as any power move the sport has seen, channelling the disruptive edge of the Sixties “garagistas” with the primal energy of ambition without end.
Newey, formerly of the mighty Red Bull, starts work on the first Monday in March, the latest and most significant addition to a workforce that has expanded rapidly from 400 to almost 1,000.
Ten per cent of the operation is attached to a commercial department made up of videographers, graphic designers, and merchandise and marketing specialists, tasked with polishing the message and building the brand.
As the team’s lead driver Fernando Alonso remarked, none of this guarantees success, but without it, victory is impossible.
“A new facility, the wind tunnel, gives us optimism,” Alonso said at F1’s season launch in London.
“The [management] reshuffle, a lot of changes, new people coming, Adrian joining, is really encouraging. I can’t wait to see the organisation pushing in the same direction. I feel very privileged to be here. Very exciting times for the team.”
Despite the encouraging start in Alonso’s first season, Aston ranked fifth in the 2023 constructors’ championship and again last year. Though they hope for quantum gains this season after a total aero refit, the car is ultimately bound by an established regulatory framework.
It is 2026 and the introduction of new engine regulations that offers the opportunity for exponential improvement. Hence the acquisition of Newey, who excels in periods of radical change and joins 12 months before Aston switch from Mercedes to Honda power.
“There is no prediction of what is going to happen in 2026,” Alonso added, “but you have to make sure that you have the tools, the facilities, the talent, the commitment, and the partners to give yourself a chance.
“For us to have Honda from 2026, to have Aramco with us, to have the facilities, to have the talent, both the existing people in the team and new people arriving, we’re putting everything we need in place. We’re doing all we can to give ourselves a good chance.”
Overseeing all of this is Andy Cowell, a former Mercedes engine guru installed by Stroll as team principal. His office sits next to Stroll’s in the plush end of the complex, a short step from the helicopter landing pad.
It should be said that Cowell is not a helicopter kinda guy. He drives to work each day, and favours a more minimalist approach to getting results.
“Most of my work prior to this was factory based, changing performance in the power unit. There is now the outward-facing side if it,” Cowell said of his new role.
“Amazing brand, amazing people, tremendous investment. It would be great to get 100 per cent out of it. We are all striving for perfection.”
Cowell had his first real experience of this new environment when leading out the drivers at the F175 anniversary party at The O2 last week.
Cowell took the mic on the catwalk in front of 15,000 fans as the drivers descended the stairs following their spoof Bond entrance, simulating the Thames River chase scene from The World is Not Enough.
An iconic entry as #FA14 and #LS18 arrive in 007 style!#F175Live pic.twitter.com/tcgT33ZGWM— Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1)
We might see Cowell as M in the Aston Martin set-up, not wholly comfortable in the spotlight, and Newey as his invisible asset providing Bond with the fancy kit needed to succeed.
“Adrian is creative, one of the few engineers who can bridge across aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics and the data logger that is the driver,” Cowell told The i Paper.
“He communicates well with the driver and can pull out the comments that the telemetry isn’t showing and feed that back into the factory on campus and deliver lap time.
“We will feel the benefit of him in the earliest days. We have been working on the 2026 regs since the beginning of January. I’m sure he will be coming up with pertinent observations on the car concept and the fidelity of our tools, where we can make improvements.
“An individual like Adrian has a broad perspective and the determination to chase down beliefs in performance. That is what he will add. I worked with him briefly in 2004 at Mercedes.
“His observations on what is happening at the track and bringing that back to the engineering group is, I suspect, where he will bring an advantage.”
Cowell points out that the top-down staff restructuring he has overseen since his own arrival in September was to a degree with Newey in mind.
“The organisation changes were made to make it more efficient, less reporting lines, less meetings, making quicker progress. Everybody is excited at the thought of working with Adrian. We are just excited to have him, to work on our creativity and method. We are all going to lift standards so that we make the fastest race car every year.”
The expansionist vision of the owner has inevitably brought into the team’s orbit the sport’s pre-eminent driver. Cowell is too diplomatic to speculate on the prospect of landing Max Verstappen in the future, saying only that the team is delighted with Stroll’s son, Lance, and Alonso.
The latter, even at 43, continues to demonstrate the necessary craft and desire to maximise performance. The long-term position of Lance is the more interesting. To replace him – and he would be the logical victim of any move for Verstappen – would require Lawrence to jettison his raison d’etre for starting the project, to indulge the F1 desires of his son.
In the meantime Alonso leads this team with distinction on the track, and off it with his statesman-like presence and high-quality feedback. Of the three competing world champions this season, Alonso was the only one to attend an F1 Legends dinner in London ahead of the F175 show.
He revealed that attendees, who included ex-supremo F1 Bernie Ecclestone, former Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and 1978 F1 world champion Mario Andretti, were asked to write a secret note about their wishes for the sport in 2025.
“We put the paper in a box to be opened in 25 years to see what is written. If champions wrote something 25 years ago it would be great to read it now,” he said.
That’s Alonso for you, bang on message, always striking the right note. You can see why Aston Martin value him so highly, and why, in a Newey rocket, he might yet make the Stroll dream a reality.
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