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The cat is about to be let out of the bag and it’s now expected that Adrian Newey will be announced as having picked Aston Martin for his next Formula 1 move.
There’s no doubt about the qualities he brings, but the big questions are: exactly how will he be used, and what position will he take up in the team?
Team owner Lawrence Stroll has not been shy about employing top-end engineers from other teams and paying big money to do so. He’s also been very creative at coming up with a name for each and every new position.
But job titles and an on-paper structure are easy enough to set. What really matters is how this top-heavy technical management fits together and works in reality.
The team has changed completely since that day 30-odd years ago when Eddie Jordan decided to take his team into F1. In 1990, when we started designing the Jordan 191, there were three of us - myself, Andy Green and Mark Smith - who did the design work and probably 15 others who were involved in running the three-car Eddie Jordan Racing F3000 team at the same time. Myself and Green would go off each race weekend to engineer two of those cars - that's how small-time an operation it was.
We were working from one of the Silverstone lock-ups, which was even too small for that three-car F3000 team, never mind building a prototype F1 car, but we managed in what was probably 500 square metres if that. My first job was to turn the mezzanine floor into a drawing office.
I mention this because it shows just how complicated an F1 team today is by comparison.
Today, Aston Martin has more or less taken over Silverstone. It has three factory buildings with a total floor area of 16,250sq/m, so I suppose being that size means you need many levels of responsibility.
In reality, Ferrari and Aston Martin are the only two companies involved in F1 that could offer Adrian something special. His interest goes far beyond being on the coalface in F1 as Aston Martin’s involvement in the sportscar market means he can follow his dream of designing the ultimate supercar.
However, the first priority has to be optimising its F1 structure to take the step from midfield to potential championship-winning team.
It will be interesting and revealing to see how many chief technical officers Aston Martin actually ends up having.
It is rumoured that Adrian didn’t go to Ferrari because Fred Vasseur wasn’t keen on letting him put in place the technical structure he wanted. Newey won’t have a problem with that under Stroll’s ownership, but once that’s in place it is no guarantee of success and could be when the problems really start.
As I said above, Stroll has not been shy about employing top-end engineers and handing the responsibility of getting them all to pull in the same direction to Newey is not going to happen overnight. Employing, or perhaps giving Adrian a stake in the company, is a positive move given his success in F1. But Newey has to be in the right role with the right level of responsibility or he will not thrive.
Newey is a thinker, a creative person. If he wants to go and sit in a darkened room while he thinks things through, then he needs to have the opportunity to do that. If he is constantly fighting fires and under pressure for quick fixes, then you won’t get the best out of him.
That means if there are any grey areas in the operational structure, he won’t be at his creative best and there will be room for politics to become a problem.
Newey should be able to bring Aston Martin the ideas it needs to take a step forward after becoming stuck in the midfield. But the question of how it works in reality, how it all meshes together and whether he really is given the time to make a difference will be what matters.
Aston Martin has everything it needs, including the budget. The question now is if all those ingredients can be pulled together to bring the results on the track.
Money can’t buy instant success. It’s all about the ingredients and how it mixes together.
This move also means we are now going to get the definitive answer to the question that has been unanswered since F1 began: is it the car or the driver that brings a team success?
According to Lawrence Stroll, who is spending many millions on bringing in Newey, it is the car.
According to Ferrari, which wouldn’t meet Newey's requirements but has hired Lewis Hamilton, it is the driver.
Only time will tell who made the right decision.
