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From 2026 Aston Martin will have Honda engines, an in-house gearbox and legendary Formula 1 designer Adrian Newey on board, all in a new factory. This is the story of how it built the dream home for its dream team.
Newey announced his split with Red Bull in May 2025 after a two-decade relationship that included designing six constructors’ championship-winning cars for the team.
It seemed that Newey would follow Lewis Hamilton and join Ferrari in 2025. There was even talk of him joining Mercedes. Instead, in September 2024, Aston Martin announced Newey’s signing to much fanfare involving the drivers and team owner Lawrence Stroll.
The team said at the time that a “private tour of the team's brand-new AMR Technology Campus [factory] in June - a tangible demonstration of the team's limitless ambition - proved a decisive factor in the decision-making process”.
It added that new technical regulations, Honda power units, Aramco fuels, and the “newest windtunnel in the sport” were part of what persuaded Newey to join.
That, and a lucrative offer reportedly worth up to £30million per year, plus the creative challenge of becoming the team’s ‘managing technical partner’, was enough for the designer to put pen to paper.
Newey’s statement upon joining Aston Martin was equally punchy. He said that Lawrence Stroll “is the only majority team owner who is actively engaged in the sport".
“His commitment is demonstrated in the development of the new [factory] and windtunnel at Silverstone, which are not only state of the art but have a layout that creates a great environment to work in,” Newey added.
The factory might well have swayed the likes of Andy Cowell (group CEO), Enrico Cardile (chief technical officer) and Bob Bell (executive director) as well. A massive new space with class-leading equipment is always going to provide more opportunities for teams to develop better cars.
Last piece of the puzzle
Billionaire Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll was buying the best bang-for-buck F1 team at the time when he acquired Force India in 2018.
The team won a grand prix under its interim Racing Point name in 2020 thanks to Sergio Perez’s heroics at Sakhir. By then it had already been announced that Stroll was bringing the Aston Martin marque back to F1 for 2021 after a 60-year hiatus having purchased a stake in the British car manufacturer.
According to ex-team principal Otmar Szafnauer, Racing Point was the “smallest” squad in F1 in 2020. It was estimated to have under 400 employees at the time. That number grew to around 500 when Aston Martin entered F1, and now it’s estimated that more than 800 employees work at the Silverstone organisation.
A rapidly expanding workforce meant Aston Martin was outgrowing its old Jordan F1 team headquarters. Not only that, its facilities and the building itself were ageing.
It couldn’t operate successfully from the 315-square metre Jordan factory and a smattering of temporary buildings. Mercedes’s F1 factory in Brackley, Oxfordshire, has a footprint of 60,000 square metres. Even Red Bull’s new engine department covers 464 square metres.
Stroll put aside £200m for a new factory. While it was being created, the team would continue to use the old Jordan factory and temporary buildings.
Ex-McLaren F1 boss Martin Whitmarsh became Aston Martin’s group CEO in 2021 and is widely credited for keeping the wheels turning on the factory project. In October 2024, Whitmarsh was replaced by ex-Mercedes F1 engine boss Cowell.
Team principal Mike Krack says: “Martin was really on it, in terms of infrastructure projects, and keeping to deadlines, and keeping to the financial framework. And it's fantastic, the way he has done that.
“Not many people would have achieved this without delays. I think Lawrence [Stroll] is grateful that it has not exceeded the financial frame, but, timing-wise, it has been spot on.”
Project manager Guy Austin - who was involved in the Reynard factory that became Benetton’s Enstone HQ, plus a Royal Air Force project in Scotland - was also brought on board to oversee the factory build.
A small team of technical personnel including performance director Tom McCullough was enlisted to write a wishlist for their respective departments.
“I think Lawrence was pretty clear when he bought the team,” recalls McCullough.
“He said ‘I want the best… I want you to go and get what everybody else is going to want'.
“Ultimately, Lawrence just said ‘tell me what it's going to cost, we will invest in the facilities because this is the time now, for the future’.
"And he has absolutely stuck to that. And actually, that was one of our biggest struggles: to remove the shackles, literally think ‘utopia’.
“What if money was no object, what would you do? Then we'll be sensible.”
A three-building 'utopia'
Aston Martin’s new factory spans 37,000 square metres over three buildings that house more than 800 employees. That number could grow to 1000 employees by the time Honda jumps on board.
The factory was planned and has been accomplished in a three-step process.
Building one was completed in July 2023. It houses offices for marketing and communications staff and some engineering staff. On the ground floor is a shiny lobby, complete with the trophies that the team accumulated in 2023.
The ‘Street’ is the main artery of building one: a 160-metre-long corridor with fabrication, electronics, composites and the race shop team flanking it. This building was inaugurated with some fanfare as Lance Stroll blazed an F1 car through it in July 2023 , the tyre marks he left on the ground needed a fair bit of elbow grease to remove.
Building two’s foundations were laid just after building one was completed and this second part was completed by July 2024 - although it took a couple more months for staff to move in. Just in time for the team to announce the acquisition of Newey in September 2024.
The new simulator is building two’s standout feature, although many are also grateful for the new dining area - a far cry from the temporary canteen in the parking lot.
There’s also a new staff gym in building two, fit for the pitcrew to train in, and a running track outside - surrounded by wildflowers and shrubbery to protect the local natural habitat. There are swathes of solar panels for renewable power on its roofs.
Finally, race logistics have a huge space to set the team up for flyaway races with ease, as trucks can reverse right up to the second building.
It’s building three that might pique the interest of the technically-minded. This is the one that includes the model shop where the windtunnel models are created, plus the windtunnel and its control room right next door. With F1’s Aerodynamic Testing Regulations strictly limiting windtunnel time, this layout is crucial.
Aston Martin Performance Technologies has also been working from building three since the start of 2024 - with the new 1000 horsepower Valhalla supercar one of its recent products.
“We are pretty much finished,” said Austin in October 2024. “We will be properly done by the end of the first week in November, but the nature of construction contracts is that there's a thing called the ‘defects liability period’.”
Austin explained that defects in materials and workmanship could come up for a year after completion. Furthermore, the team had to revisit building one as it made the decision to build its own gearbox from 2026 alongside the arrival of Honda. Austin says he and Whitmarsh had planned for such an occurrence.
All things considered, Aston Martin will be able to start properly using its new tools by the first quarter of 2025, although the process is quick; the team produced a part using its fabrication tools within a week of building one’s ribbon-cutting.
What it means for F1
A new factory isn’t just about having shiny new toys. Although that’s the most fun aspect of it.
Massive autoclaves, a hefty new windtunnel, and a race simulator fit for a world champion are all exciting. The team has also been enjoying the results of its race control room where staff assist those trackside from building one. Better networking capabilities, faster computers, better space and bigger screens make race control a more effective space than before.
But there’s a less explicit characteristic of this new factory that will yield big results for Aston Martin.
“I suppose we've gone from what was the smallest, pokiest [base] - nearly dysfunctional, as a harsh word - several industrial units. It was just messy, while now it just is so... liberating,” says McCullough.
He cites “ease of access” as one of the big short-term benefits of the new factory. Morale has improved considerably given people have sufficient space - and even windows - to enjoy.
“It was a real Eddie Jordan Racing-style fabrication shop," adds McCullough, referencing the junior racing operation that grew into Jordan F1 three and a half decades ago.
"Now you walk in, they've got all the kit, just a nice environment to work in.
"People are excited and proud. You really feel that walking around, it doesn’t matter where you are.”
Krack says the morale improvement was instantly clear when the model shop team moved into its new digs in 2024.
“You put them in a place where everything is so much nicer, so much bigger, so much easier, and they [thrive] in that. You go in there and you see the people smile. They say, ‘it was really worth all these hard years to now have all these facilities here, and these possibilities’.”
Ben Fitzgerald, the team’s operations director, explains that Aston Martin had staff spread out around Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and even Wales - where part of Aston Martin’s road car business is based.
The new factory has opened doors - or doorways - for better efficiency.
“We’d outgrown the old factory. The movement in the old factory was very inefficient because doorways weren't suitable; access was not suitable. We even cut extra doorways in, things like that - it’d become very organic in its growth,” he says.
Now the team can produce more parts in house and it doesn't have to worry whether a new floor will fit through a doorway. It’s already taken care of.
Fitzgerald estimates that around 100,000 components that made it to the racetrack were made in-house in 2022. That was doubled in 2023. And in 2024 the proportion increased by around 40% over the previous year.
“Strategically, that's why we built the campus. We wanted the capability to produce performance parts in our own factory, rather than be reliant on external supply chains,” concludes Fitzgerald.
There’s still more optimisation to come - a “never-ending” process, according to Krack - to make sure relevant teams are sat close enough, while accounting for the incoming Honda staff.
The £200m question
Will this new factory change Aston Martin’s fortunes?
'Team Silverstone' had previously enjoyed success out of a tiny facility but times are changing. Even Sauber, which placed last in the 2024 constructors’ championship, had 15,600 square metres to work from.
“This is not Force India or Racing Point any more, and this is not an underdog project,” says Krack.
“This is not about surviving or participating, this is to get to the front. And that's the game-changing part of it. And that is something that we have to grow into.
“For example, we were level with Mercedes at the beginning of [2024]; they have won four or five races. You see Red Bull was in trouble; they manoeuvred themselves out quickly.
“You see Ferrari was in trouble with the Barcelona upgrade, and they fixed it quickly. And we are not at that pace. We have not got this pace of reaction yet. And there you see that there are still a lot of things to put in place.”
Krack says the transition to the new factory is complicated, but “you must not use it as an excuse, especially as it is not a worse facility,”. He explains that “everything should be much easier and should be better.
“So, you will not hear me, at least, [say] ‘this counts as an excuse for poor performance’.”
The ingredients are almost in place, and with the new regulations in mind, this factory has been delivered at perhaps the perfect time for the team.
Newey’s on board. Cowell, Cardile, and Bell will only bolster the technical team.
But the competition is only going to get tougher with Cadillac and Audi (through its purchase of Sauber) joining the fray - while Red Bull continues to develop its own engine and established suppliers Ferrari and Mercedes build on their past success.
“I always say this is the Champions League of motorsport. If you want to win the Champions League, you have to be on it, because your opponents are on it as well,” summarises Krack.
“And it counts for every little aspect. And as soon as you become complacent in one area you fall back. You have no chance.”
With a star-studded technical team captained by Newey, Aston Martin knows it is no longer a bang-for-buck underdog. This is a world-class team in a world-class facility - a statement of intent against the behemoths of Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren.
The dream home is complete; now, the dream team must deliver.
