Official: Adrian Newey has joined the Aston Martin Formula One team

Is Adrian Newey’s the most significant signature in F1? Lawrence Stroll, ebullient owner of the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team – to give it its full name – certainly thinks so. This morning the least secret secret in world sport was confirmed: Newey will be joining the team as Managing Technical Partner. He starts officially on March 1st 2025, on a contract expected to last for five years.

His decision to join Aston Martin is a testament to Stroll’s immense powers of persuasion and unfathomably deep pockets. The Canadian billionaire has declared unequivocally that his team will win the F1 World Championship, an ambition that suddenly looks a lot more realistic.

The financial scale of the deal wasn’t discussed in the press conference, but whatever the sums involved will make Newey the best remunerated figure in F1 after Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, and Lando Norris. A source close to Newey disputes that it’s anything close to the £30m plus bonuses that’s been quoted in the media and that the deal is complex in structure.

Importantly, Newey will be a shareholder in the team and his role will allow him to actively influence the team’s direction of travel.

“Arguably, he is the greatest in the world at what he does,” said Stroll. “There’s nobody who’s come close to winning as many world championships. He’s a gentleman, he’s a winner, he’s a competitor, and he has the passion and desire to win. There is no other Formula One team that’s as poised for the future as we are, so we can’t be more excited to have Adrian.”

As well as the obvious fiscal incentive, Newey says that a June visit to the team’s ever-expanding HQ, opposite the Silverstone circuit, convinced him that this was a good fit. The conversations had been ongoing for three years, but intensified once Newey decided it was time for a new challenge, an instinct that solidified during the Japanese GP weekend in April.

Amongst other factors, he’s said to have missed the direct contact he enjoyed with Red Bull’s co-owner, the late Dietrich Mateschitz.

“Lawrence’s passion and commitment and enthusiasm is very endearing. It’s very persuasive,” said Newey. “Go back 20 years or so and what we now call Team Principals were actually the owners of teams. In the modern era, Lawrence is unique, he’s the only active team owner and that brings a different feeling, it’s back to the old school model.

"The chance to be a shareholder and partner is something that has never really been offered to me. So it became a very natural choice.”

Newey is a formidable competitor and not given to sentiment, but you sense that the Aston Martin opportunity will also help him side-step the political machinations that are rife amongst certain teams. He’s a man who trusts his gut and knows instinctively when something feels right. Aston Martin ticks that box – but its infrastructure is now also world class. The team’s wind tunnel, the first all-new one in the sport for 20 years, is due to open early next year.

“The resources here are just stunning,” Newey said of Aston Martin’s F1 HQ. “It’s not an easy thing to do, to build a brand new factory on a greenfield site and have a really nice, warm and creative feel to it. After all, that’s what we’re here for, to try to be creative and to have good communication. I’ve seen some new buildings that haven’t quite fulfilled that.

“They have all the key pieces of infrastructure needed to make Aston Martin a world championship winning team and I am very much looking forward to helping them reach that goal,” he added. “The new rules are an opportunity, they’re a reset for everybody. Whether we’ll be able to capitalise on that or not, we just don’t know.

"But I never spend too long fretting about these things. You just do the best job you can.”

Newey will lead a technical team that includes former Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell, former Red Bull aerodynamicist Dan Fallows, and former Ferrari chassis tech lead Enrico Cardile. It’s a stellar line-up, and with a big technical reset due for the 2026 season, Aston Martin very much looks like a front-runner. Now that Newey is confirmed, let’s crank up the rumour mill on the driver line-up…