Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell says Adrian Newey has already had a tangible impact on its 2026 Formula 1 car design in the first 10 days he's worked there, but that Newey has not yet turned his attention to its 2025 challenger.
Newey's move to Aston Martin as managing technical partner was announced last September but he didn't start work until Monday March 3.
He has made it clear that the 2026 car for F1's next set of regulations is his priority, with Cowell confirming this is exactly how it has played out as "so far, his focus has been entirely on" next year and that Newey has been "busy drawing layouts on the '26 car".
Cowell said earlier this month that Newey "was in a concept meeting almost straight away" after arriving at Aston Martin's Silverstone factory, and, speaking in the Australian Grand Prix paddock on Thursday to media including The Race, revealed what he calls "the Adrian effect" has already been felt.
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"Adrian's been with us for 10 days now," said Cowell. "His first day was very low-key. He's an engineer, he's walked in, he's picking up the 2026 regulations, getting into the detail of the work that we've been doing, understanding that, contributing to ideas, [working on] the drawing board.
"It's a joy to work with Adrian. His experience is vast, his hunger is huge, and it [means] wonderful conversations about making fast race cars and the compromises that you have to make. And [he’s] building up good working relationships with engineers that have been pushing the concept to date.
"There's already a few areas...I'm smiling to myself; I won't give you the detail, because I don't want our opponents to know, but there's a couple of areas where already he's saying, 'Can we just push that in this direction? Can we just do that?'
"And engineers - mechanical engineers, composite engineers - are looking at it and going, 'Ooh, yeah OK we'll have a go'. And I think that's the Adrian effect. He picks up on the areas where you should push them, and everybody's just embracing it."
Live scenes outside Adrian's office. 👀 pic.twitter.com/l3f1Wug5tx
— Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) March 11, 2025
Newey's distinctive way of working, using a traditional drawing board for his design endeavours rather than computer-based design tools, makes him a rare outlier in modern F1. But Cowell believes that Newey's drawing abilities make it easy to translate his 2D schematics into 3D designs and that he's already becoming integrated in the way the team works.
"Whether it's a drawing board, whether it's CAD [computer aided design], it's taking creative 3D thoughts that are in your head and communicating it to colleagues," said Cowell.
"We all know how to read drawings; the screen's 2D in CAD, although you can rotate to observe in 3D. Adrian's drawing prowess is such that he draws sections so that you can see it in 3D. And the world of aerodynamics works with pure aerodynamicists and also people that create 3D surfaces, so they're experts in creating beautiful surfaces in the world of 3D.
"It's just bringing all that together and it's having the flexibility to work in different media, to download the creative thoughts in a human brain and collaborate together. It's a big team of people - the aero development world isn't one person, it's a group of people communicating."
Drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll have yet to speak with Newey since he started work, a quirk of the scheduling of pre-season testing and the first race that means neither has been at the factory lately.
This weekend, Newey will not participate in the race weekend-related technical meetings via link up and will instead continue work on the 2026 project - with the 11-hour timezone difference to Melbourne also making taking an active interest in goings-on a poor use of his time.
