Formula 1 design legend Adrian Newey has revealed how he conceived the concept behind his new Aston Martin AMR26 while on gardening leave from Red Bull.
Now Aston Martin team boss Newey originally announced the departure from his previous employer in the spring of 2024.
After agreeing a deal to join Aston Martin in September of that year, he remained on Red Bull's books for a while before being put on gardening leave ahead of joining his new team in March 2025.
With his first Aston Martin design, the striking AMR26, having grabbed attention since it broke cover in the recent Barcelona test, Newey has offered some insight into the ideas behind it.
While there are certainly some stand-out elements to it – such as the rear suspension being mounted to the rear-wing pillar and the aggressive sidepods – Newey said single aspects will not be key to its success.
Instead, he has labelled the thinking behind it as a "holistic approach" – with its performance down to how every bit of the car works together.
The thinking behind it, he says, evolved during the break from day-to-day duties between Red Bull and Aston Martin.
"The philosophy really, I suppose, came in my garden leave time, where I joined the team on the second of March, but I was on gardening leave from late April, effectively," he said at the Aston Martin season launch.
"We all knew that the regulations were published, so I just tried to sit back and think: 'OK, just think from first principles. What are these regulations? What could be a possible solution?' So I came up with a philosophy.
"Then, when I started at the team on March 2, I kind of discussed that philosophy with the aerodynamicists and designers at Aston Martin. We all agreed that that seemed a viable proposal.
"And that's what we've followed ever since."
The process is similar to Newey's famous move from Williams to McLaren in the 1990s, when he spent his enforced pause between working for the two teams considering the concepts that then went into the first McLaren designed under his leadership - the double title winning MP4/13 of 1998. That team switch also coincided with a major rules reset that he had chance to think about on a conceptual level while not actively working with a team.
While Newey's idea behind the 2026 Aston Martin has been well thought through, he is not naive enough to think that it is guaranteed to be the most successful way to approach the new regulations.
He says the lessons of the last rules reset in 2022, where teams started with very different designs before converging, will likely be repeated from 2026.
"Whenever there's a big regulation change, there's always huge opportunities," he said. "It's who spots what.
"Which one is the answer and proves to be the correct solution, only time will tell.
"You saw that in 2022 when the last big regulation change came out. At the start of '22 there were lots of different interpretation solutions.
"In the end, one tended to turn out to be the correct and the most appropriate one, and by, let's say the start of '24, everybody started converging."
Newey has embraced his switch to Aston Martin, and driver Lance Stroll - who is in the car for the first morning of the main test at Sakhir today - has noticed how deeply involved he gets in understanding what the car is doing.
"It's very inspiring to be working with him, and just having conversations with him about the car and its strengths and weaknesses, what it needs," explained Stroll.
"He just has a very good understanding - like almost a driver's understanding - of what makes a good car good. And to just have that kind of relationship with him, talking about the car and the strengths and weaknesses, it's very special."
What's still missing
Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has invested heavily in trying to create a championship-winning F1 team.
But despite its revamped Silverstone facilities, a double world champion in Fernando Alonso and the arrival of Newey, it has yet to achieve a single race victory in its Aston Martin era let alone a title.
Achieving its ultimate ambition may take a while though, with Newey suggesting that despite its state-of-the-art facilities that he labels as "second to none", some aspects of the team and its processes are not yet in a finished state.
"Lawrence's vision and investment into this building have given us without doubt, the best facilities in F1 and that's a tremendous asset," said Newey.
"But it's clearly one part of the equation. The equally important or second part is the personnel that populate that building and how they work together.
"And that's the bit that I feel we're making huge strides on."
