Why Adrian Newey won’t be involved with Aston Martin in 2025

It’s somewhat paradoxical that Aston Martin has brought onboard one of the most influential Formula 1 designers of the modern era, Adrian Newey, yet hasn’t tasked him with evolving the 2025 car—despite its evident shortcomings.

Officially, the British engineer is fully focused on the sweeping regulatory changes coming in 2026 and hasn’t dedicated any time to refining the aerodynamics of the AMR25. However, that doesn’t mean his influence won’t subtly impact this season’s car.

Newey leaves Red Bull for Aston Martin

Andy Cowell, Aston Martin’s team principal, addressed the situation Thursday in Saudi Arabia:

“One hundred percent of Adrian’s design time is focused on 2026‚” Cowell told reporters in Jeddah on Thursday. “He joined in March, so there was a period of him getting up to speed with the regulations, up to speed with the concept work that we’ve been doing in the preceding couple of months, and there are some tough deadlines to meet for releasing monocoque details and transmission details".

He continued: “So getting a car ready for [the test in January] requires slightly earlier decision points, and clearly everything’s new, there’s zero carryover. So there’s lots of work there and Adrian’s just been focused on that.”

Newey’s Influence on the AMR25

Although Newey isn’t directly involved in the development of Aston Martin’s 2025 car, his expertise is still making an impact in other areas.

“There is value in Adrian understanding the tools that we’ve got, the fidelity of those tools, and the precision with which they predict what’s going to happen on the racetrack,” explained Aston Martin’s team principal. “[Adrian is] focused largely on the tools that we’re using rather than any direct performance aspects of the 25 car.”

Cowell specifically referenced the team’s use of wind tunnel testing and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations as areas where Newey’s insight is helping:

Adrian Newey “keen to improve everything”

“Adrian’s been hugely complimentary about the campus and has been positive about the tunnel that we’ve got and the way that everything’s been set up,” Cowell said. “He is, of course, pushing for us to improve the way we operate in the tunnel… He’s got thoughts on how to improve pretty much everything, and that’s the great thing about Adrian’s competitive drive.”

Aston Martin currently sits seventh in the Constructors’ Championship with just 10 points—all scored by Lance Stroll in the chaotic Australian Grand Prix and in China, which saw three drivers disqualified.

In the last two races, the AMR25 has failed to score, and Fernando Alonso has yet to register a single point this season. Under normal race conditions, neither Aston Martin car has consistently been competitive enough to finish inside the points so far.

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