Adrian Newey’s appointment as Aston Martin team principal has triggered as many questions as answers when it comes to the squad’s future.
While rumours of change at the top had been mounting in recent weeks as it became clear Andy Cowell felt he could not continue in his role, the expectation was that Aston would go for a big-hitter external appointment to slot in and replace him.
Four names were understood to have been in the mix when it came to becoming Cowell’s successor.
Two of them ruled themselves out as not interested – former Aston CEO Martin Whitmarsh and Audi’s current COO Mattia Binotto were more than happy with what they are doing now.
Of the other candidates, former McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl was believed to have been seriously considered but in the end was ruled out.
Then there was former Red Bull boss Christian Horner, who is understood to have had a series of discussions over recent months with owner Lawrence Stroll about a senior executive role at the squad that included the shareholding he so desires.
While the surprise choice of making Newey team principal may appear to have shut the door on that latter deal coming off, that is not actually something set in stone just yet.
In fact, there are even some hints about it actually increasing the likelihood of something still being done with Horner in particular, rather than blocking it.
For a start, Horner has been adamant ever since he left Red Bull that he was not interested in a pure team principal role.
His focus has been on something far more senior; as team owner or at CEO level where he has overall control of the operation. It is only doing things this way that he believes he can make an F1 team successful.
It is understood that a central point of discussions with Aston Martin has been along these lines – and that any deal that was in the offing was not about being team principal.
There is a differentiation in the role that Horner has been talking about, and that of the 'team principal' itself.
It’s a system that works well at other teams – like McLaren, with Andrea Stella and Zak Brown, and Audi with Jonathan Wheatley and Binotto.
But the only way that such a scenario works like this is if the team principal’s responsibilities are not all-encompassing – so there is no crossover with those above them in the organisational chart.
For Aston Martin, there certainly seems to be a case that there are a host of responsibilities that a team principal has which do not make sense to be wasting Newey’s time on.
Newey was signed to help lead Aston Martin’s engineering team to produce a car that can win races and perhaps even the world championship.
That is a full-time role where Newey needs every moment he can to find those marginal gains that make the difference between a car that is ahead of the opposition and one that is behind.
It does not make much sense to have someone with Newey’s genius on board and get him bogged down in HR performance reviews, sponsor meet-and-greets, endless media appearances and F1 Commission meetings and team politics.
In a recent interview published by Aston Martin, Newey talked about a general scepticism of the kind of ‘big meetings’ that are a mainstay of running a modern F1 team.
“I spend probably around 50% of my day at the moment, working with the other engineers, either at a one-to-one level, gathered around a CAD station, or in meetings,” he said.
“I generally, if I'm honest, I prefer the former, because I think one-to-one meetings are quite often where you can do the brainstorm ones. The big meetings, if you're not careful, become procedural information exchanges without actually coming up with new ideas, which is, of course, the important bit.”
Newey is at his very best when he is in the ‘trance’ of working on a new design, and Aston would be crazy not to do everything it can to allow him to remain in that state.
So him taking a team principal role in the traditional sense would seem illogical.
But if you dig into the details of the Aston Martin statement, there seemed to be some clues about this new role not being as all-encompassing as perhaps the same TP titles are at other squads.
It was announced that Newey’s role will be “guiding the technical team, including the trackside operations of the car”.
There are many other aspects to running a squad that a traditional team principal has to get hands on with.
Team owner Stroll also made reference to Newey’s additional responsibilities enabling him to “make full use of his creative and technical expertise”.
Adding to someone’s work load and getting them involved in areas that are not their expertise does not seem to be the best way to increase creative freedom though.
So perhaps in being so specific on what Newey is doing, the changes that Aston Martin announced this week are just the first step of a wider evolution that will take shape over 2026.
And this is why the door may still be open for some kind of Horner deal.
Getting things across the line between Horner and Aston Martin is almost irrespective of who it has as team principal.
In fact, the decision to put Newey there, with his skill set and the focus on guiding the technical team, makes it even more obvious that Aston Martin needs someone in a CEO role who can master the other responsibilities that come with it.
Having someone like Horner at a senior level – who thrives on the commercial deals, the media appearances and the management of staff – would be the perfect complement to the areas where Newey is so strong.
The implications that Newey’s appointment is permanent so Horner is out of the running as team principal do not rule out him coming on board in a separate role.
The Newey situation, and what is going on behind the scenes with Horner, have to be seen as two parallel paths.
It is well understood that Horner is not allowed to start work for another F1 team until the first half of next season, so any deal that he may do with Aston Martin or any other team would not be for the start of the 2026 campaign.
Nothing is done yet - and Horner and Stroll may yet come to the conclusion that a deal is not possible.
But there has been a further intriguing change behind the scenes at Aston MArtin that points to the ‘old team’ getting back together.
Red Bull’s former head of production, supply chain and logistics Paul Field has just been appointed as Aston Martin’s COO in a move that is understood to have been instigated by Newey.
It seems clear that Newey wants things done in a way that achieved such great success at his former squad.
The key question now is whether that includes the renewal of a working relationship with Horner that was decisive in previous glories.
