Design guru Adrian Newey has been working for Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team since this year. His name is high hopes for the British. Maybe also a change from Max Verstappen. The Brit now makes it clear what would have to happen.
It was the coup of the year. In April 2024, Adrian Newey announced that he would leave Red Bull Racing and join Aston Martin.
He was only able to get to work from this season. The main task: building the new car for 2026 and making Aston Martin suitable for the title. In Monaco he confirms that he is working on the car for the next year with full focus and capacity when a new regulations come into force.
“I had a free weekend two weeks ago, but otherwise I’ve been fully busy since the start of work,” he says in a conversation with the “Guardian”. “My wife says I fall into a kind of design trance and I can understand what she means. If I concentrate so intensely that I can no longer see left and right, my entire computing power flows into an area, namely into the design of a fast racing car.”
Get Newey Verstappen to Aston Martin?
In the past few weeks and months, there has also been speculation about changing from Max Verstappen. Aston Martin was always mentioned. Newey and the world champion worked together for many years. All Verstappen World Cup cars came from Newey.
“Max is clearly a phenomenal talent, he is an outstanding competitor and part of it is that Max likes to break down things to a simple equation,” said Newey. “This is the choice of a team that he believes that it delivers the fastest car. So if we ever want to attract Max, we first have to build a quick car.”
Newey also explained that he was “99 percent” working on the 2026 car and that he considered the facilities at Aston Martin to be exemplary.
“The factory is probably the best factory in the F1 and the wind tunnel is probably the best wind tunnel in the F1,” he said. “But ultimately wind tunnels are a bit like engine test benches, you need them and of course a really good wind tunnel, but ultimately it is not the thing that makes the difference, it is the human element of the design that you put in it.”