New Aston Martin managing technical partner Adrian Newey has already identified where the Formula 1 team must improve if it is to realise the potential of the project.
Ex-Red Bull technical chief Newey started work at Aston Martin on March 3, becoming the team's most high-profile recruit in its bid to fight for world championships.
That looks a tall order even with the likes of Newey onboard, Fernando Alonso as its lead driver, and Honda joining as a works engine partner in 2026, as Aston Martin's form has gradually slumped since its brief, head-turning run as a regular podium finisher at the start of 2023.
In his first interview since joining Aston Martin, Newey revealed a few nuggets about what he has already noticed and how he views the challenge of turning around the team's decline back into the lower midfield.
Aero department must grow
A couple of months after joining, and having settled in at the new Silverstone factory, Newey believes there are "a few areas that need strengthening with greater numbers" despite Aston Martin's prolific recruitment drive bringing in hundreds of new staff already.
Newey's priority is the 2026 car and the massive rules change that is coming, which he says are shaped by resources - both the budget cap, and staffing levels.
"One area of our team that needs to grow is the aerodynamics department," Newey said.
"But in the short term that means we've got to decide which directions are going to be the most fruitful and really concentrate our resources on those.
"Of course, in doing that, there's always a danger that we've missed an avenue.
"Quite often, you have to go a long way down a certain branch before you know whether it's going to be a fruitful one or not.
"It's sometimes the case that a branch might not start off looking that promising, because it's very new and underdeveloped, but actually it's got more fruit at the end."
As there are "short timescales" to meet 2026 deadlines, Newey says part of his job will be to aid efficiency by telling engineers not to pursue certain paths - which he doesn't like to do.
Facilities needs to be used better
Newey has been very complimentary of Aston Martin's facilities since his intended move was first made official, and has spoken highly of the people already at the team and others on their way there.
He has now spoken warmly of the reception he has had since joining – "it hasn't always been the case when I've started with a new team" – and believes staff are "keen and enthusiastic".
At the same time, Newey recognises that the headcount has "grown a lot over a very short space of time", in addition to a lot of new tools and systems becoming available.
Newey says a big challenge is therefore to "get everything working smoothly", which is consistent with what team principal and group CEO Andy Cowell noticed about the previous way Aston Martin's technical team was operating across the Silverstone factory and trackside.
"Lawrence's vision has created a great facility – the best facility in F1 – but it is important that we now optimise how we use it," said Newey.
"My previous team had one of the worst windtunnels in F1 and operates out of an unremarkable series of buildings on an industrial estate, but it managed to get everybody working together and developed a great group of people.
"We have many talented people – also a few areas that need strengthening with greater numbers – and we need to get everyone working together better, using these tools and developing our abilities."
Newey said the amount of simulation that goes into producing an F1 car has made teams increasingly dependent on computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the windtunnel and the correlation between the real car on track and those tools.
And these tools need development themselves. CFD packages must be optimised and learned, software has to be written for the windtunnel, fit-for-purpose tyre and aero models must be developed for the simulator.
Otherwise "it won't be of any use", said Newey. "It all takes time."
'Lunchtime' chats on 2025 aero development
There is much excitement about Aston Martin's future and Newey's focus must be on 2026, especially as he joined after the initial work on next year's car was well under way.
But the team's poor performances over the last 12 months in particular, and the lack of progress it has made this year, have raised questions about whether Newey could get pulled into troubleshooting the AMR25.
This has been dismissed in terms of Newey being actively involved on 2025 development but he admits that, as team chairman Lawrence Stroll is not willing to write off this year entirely, there is aerodynamic work in process and he has fed into that slightly informally.
"Lawrence understandably wants us to do as well as we can in 2025 so there's a small team still working on this year's car from an aerodynamics point of view," said Newey.
"I've had a few lunchtime conversations with that small group, discussing the car and what we can do about it."
Newey has also spoken "extensively" with Alonso and his team-mate Lance Stroll to discuss "the strengths and weaknesses of the current car, the correlation between the current car and the driver-in-the-loop simulator, and so on".
"The drivers are an essential part of the feedback loop of how you modify the engineering organisation and the way you go about things," Newey said.
Self-belief needed
Aston Martin's best run of form since Stroll's grand transformation into this entity came at the start of 2023, when Alonso scored six podiums in the first eight races.
He finished on the podium only twice more that season as Aston Martin first began to slip back.
Since then, Aston Martin has a best result of fifth. And although 'Team Silverstone' won a race in 2020 under Stroll's ownership, then in its Racing Point guise, getting back into the top three - let alone scoring victory - feels like a long way off.
"Winning mentality is always a difficult one," said Newey.
"If it's a team that hasn't had much success over the years, then not winning becomes the norm. It's important to create the self-belief that we have the collective abilities to succeed. This is all part of trying to drive things forward.
"I'm not a cheerleader, and I'm not like an American football coach who will stand up at the front of a room and give a rousing speech.
"It's about working with everybody and developing together."
Asked if Newey's success at other teams can be replicated at Aston Martin, he said: "There's no point in daydreaming about the future. It's about getting on and doing the work. If we do our work correctly, hopefully things will come together."
His first F1 race with Aston will be Monaco
Although Newey has been on Aston Martin's books since just before the start of the season, he has yet to appear at a race.
That will change at the Monaco Grand Prix, the first time Newey plans to be on-site with Aston Martin (armed with his famous notebook).
Starting so close to the opener in Australia, and the nature of the early flyaways, meant it was essential to be at the Silverstone base when Newey was able to – plus, various 2026 car deadlines are already upon the team.
"The deadlines we have in modern F1 seem to be far earlier than they used to be 20 years ago, and there are a lot of them coming up for the 2026 car, which is where my concentration has been, so I've not been at the track," he said.
More chance for innovation in 2026 rules than it looks
Manufacturers are developing new V6 hybrids that have close to a 50/50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, which has also led to drastic car changes to make the package work as best as possible.
This has led to a lot of criticism about limitations in the new rules, and Newey admits it is "interesting and slightly scary" to have the cars and engines changing so much at the same time.
But from an engineering perspective Newey believes this presents "opportunities" and that there is more room to innovate than it first appeared.
He said that is similar to how he felt about the 2022 rules that shifted everything towards ground-effect aerodynamics and, under Newey's guidance, propelled Red Bull into a position of dominance.
"[I was] initially thinking the regulations were so prescriptive that there wasn't much left here but then you start to drill into the detail and realise there's more flexibility for innovation and different approaches than first meets the eye," said Newey.
"We saw that at the start of 2022, with teams taking really quite different directions. Now, of course, four seasons on, they've largely converged, but initially that wasn't the case.
"Variation between teams is great. It's all a bit boring if the cars look identical and the only way you can tell them apart is the livery.
"I think there's a high probability that in '26 we'll see something similar to '22. There's enough flexibility in the regulations, and I'm sure people will come up with different solutions. Some of those will be dropped over the first two or three years as teams start to converge."
Honda 'playing catch-up'
Newey has previously suggested the new rules for 2026 could turn F1 back into an engine formula akin to how Mercedes dominated the start of the V6 turbo-hybrid era in 2014.
His previous team Red Bull was badly burned by this development as its run of four straight championship doubles from 2010 to 2013 was abruptly ended by engine partner Renault's disastrous hybrid attempt.
At Aston Martin, Newey will reunite with Honda, which joined Red Bull in 2019 and improved to the point of regularly winning world championships.
However, Honda's preparation has been disrupted by a period in which it formally withdrew from F1 at the end of 2021 (even though it continued to assist Red Bull with the maintenance and running of its existing engines) and only formally, fully returned to development work when it committed to the 2026 rules with Aston Martin in early 2023.
"I've got a lot of trust in Honda and a huge amount of respect for them, having worked with them before," said Newey.
"They took a year out of F1 and so, to some extent, they're playing catch-up, but they're a great group of engineers and very much an engineering-led company."
