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Lawrence Stroll's claim that Adrian Newey joining Aston Martin might be "the most exciting news in Formula 1" is entirely justified given Newey's track record and the constant speculation that's followed him since news of his bombshell Red Bull exit.
There's no other F1 designer who could warrant such a grand, live-streamed event to announce the identity of their new team - complete with appearances from Aston's two F1 race drivers right before they jet off for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Aston's event was essentially cut from the F1 car launch template but it was revealing something even more important - and there was plenty to take away from what Newey and Stroll had to say.
The biggest surprise
Newey's unique way of operating in modern F1 and the floating role he's had at Red Bull in recent years left few people expecting him to hold a conventional full-time role at whichever team he chose to join.
And while his 'managing technical partner' is far from your typical F1 job title, Newey is going to be working full-time again, at least at first.
Stroll says he'll be "giving leadership and direction to his team" on a full-time basis and Newey affirmed: "I'll be fully in. I need to be. I have to be."
Newey scoffed at the suggestion he was only working three days a week at Red Bull, but it's clear this will mark the biggest hands-on Newey involvement in an F1 team since Renault's stuttering V6 engines made him take a step back at Red Bull in the mid-2010s.
The caveat is that he's full-time ‘to start with’. His primary focus will be on the 2026 F1 car project and Newey will be dedicating all of his time to reshaping the team and ensuring it’s in the best possible position for 2026.
He’s 65, so he’s not going to have that day-to-day role indefinitely and it seems fair to conclude that there’s a plan for him to ease back his hands-on role once through the first few years.
Then, he can still do what he’s done at Red Bull and breathe his creative magic into the team and take on other projects in a more floating role. But what’s clear is he’s going to attack this challenge 100% when he begins work in March 2025.
And that's surely a surprise that will strike fear into rival teams. This isn't a nebulous consultant role, this is Newey firmly plunging back into full-time F1 design and development work.
Newey will shape Aston
A key takeaway from the launch event is that Newey is very much a partner to Stroll. Not only officially in his new capacity as a stakeholder in the team, but as someone who Stroll trusts to reshape and lead the technical team as he sees fit. Stroll says he'll "leave the structure up to Adrian".
Aston Martin has already recruited a plethora of senior technical figures as it builds towards 2026 and the new set of car and engine regulations: Andy Cowell as group CEO, Bob Bell as executive director and Enrico Cardile as chief technical officer to add to the established senior engineers - Dan Fallows, who joined from Red Bull as technical director, ex-Mercedes aero chief Eric Blandin, who is Fallows’ deputy, engineering director Luca Furbato and performance director Tom McCullough.
So Newey has plenty of technical brains at his disposal but it's unclear whether there will be room for all of them - there was no news of any reshuffling at the event, so that may be left for Newey to rule on when he joins the team.
Aston will want to ensure that Newey isn’t caught up in the day-to-day grind of administration and management, so it stands to reason he will have plenty of freedom and flexibility in his role. But he’s signalled his intent to be there, at the factory and at races to lead the technical team.
There will be a desire to harness the creative magic dust Newey can bestow on a design process as well. He is capable of conceiving left-field original solutions and has the big-picture intuitive feel for all the performance factors and how they interact. That, combined with good old-fashioned engineering pragmatism, is what makes Newey so brilliant.
That’s quite aside from the intimate knowledge of what has made Red Bull the formidable force it’s been over the last few years.
With Cowell as an engineering-focused CEO, the potential is there for the greatest engine designer and greatest chassis engineer of their eras to combine, with Bob Bell overseeing the expansion of the facilities, maximising their usefulness and working with Cowell in fully integrating with Aston’s new engine supplier Honda.
Newey and Cowell will likely direct that process working loosely together. And it’s very clear that Newey is enthused by building Aston Martin in his own image.
How Stroll convinced Newey
Just as Niki Lauda was crucial to Lewis Hamilton joining Mercedes and Frank Williams was critical to convincing Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna to join his team, Lawrence Stroll was fundamental to recruiting Newey.
So much so that when asked 'what brought you here?', Newey laughed as he quickly replied: "Lawrence! That's easy!"
The rumoured salary of up to £30million a year won't hurt Newey's bank balance but money was never going to be the deciding factor.
Stroll arranged a private tour of Aston's facilities for Newey during negotiations to give Newey a "very visual demonstration" of Aston's F1 ambitions. Stroll called it "critical" in attracting Newey - and Newey in turn paid tribute to how Stroll is "the only majority team owner who is actively engaged in the sport".
While perhaps not seen in public, there was a pre-existing Newey-Stroll relationship with their sons Harrison and Lance racing together in European F3 in the mid-2010s, as well as Stroll and Newey overlapping in F1 circles - even including them "often bumping into each other in the gym".
Stroll's sold Newey on the idea of bringing this team up from the midfield to the front from 2026. Newey reiterated his rule of not joining a team that's already at the top, having joined Williams during a dry spell and Red Bull when it was essentially a start-up.
But there's also something new in what Aston offers Newey. Newey has the freedom to shape Aston and get shares in the team - something Newey was famously denied by Williams before his exit in the late 1990s - ticking off one of the last remaining boxes in Newey's illustrious F1 career.
He stressed he was at Aston for the long haul and this has the feeling of Newey's last F1 project. It's of course impossible to know whether that will be the case, but you have to imagine that if it's successful, it could well be.
The Red Bull-shaped elephant
Perhaps tellingly, Newey's first nod to Red Bull during the launch event went as follows: "[In May] I announced to everybody that I would be departing the old team."
And there were very few mentions of Red Bull thereafter - or his reasoning for leaving behind the team he helped to so much success.
Newey made it clear that leaving Red Bull and joining Aston Martin are two very separate decisions. He felt staying with Red Bull was no longer tenable then went about deciding whether to join another F1 team - receiving offers from "many" different teams - or walk away from the championship altogether.
He revealed he made up his mind to leave Red Bull during the Japanese GP weekend in April.
"I decided to stop at Red Bull, really over the Suzuka weekend back in April," Newey said.
"Then I genuinely had no idea what would be next. I just wanted to have a blank mind, kind of take stock. Enjoy a bit of a break and was hoping that kind of standing on in the shower somewhere, the sort of the spark would come of 'yep, this should be the direction'."
Newey's last Red Bull focus is selling the rest of the RB17 Hypercars that he helped design. That aside, Newey's moved on. The Red Bull chapter is firmly closed. Perhaps in time he will open up more on what disillusioned him, much like he did with the reasons for his exits from Williams and McLaren.
But for now, it's clear Newey's been re-energised by a new, unique opportunity. He's a 'partner' for the first time and has the opportunity to add a new string of success to his glowing resume.
