Aston Martin’s announcement today that Adrian Newey will take charge of their Formula 1 car design project next year is the culmination of a three-year-long pursuit by CEO Lawrence Stroll.
He first approached Newey in 2021. At that time Red Bull’s chief technology officer was enjoying being back at the sharp edge of competition, and his RB16B delivered the first championship for one of his drivers in eight years.
Newey was also producing the concept for Red Bull’s first car for the incoming 2022 regulations overhaul. It soon transpired he had laid the groundwork for one of the most successful periods for any team in F1 history.
Meanwhile Stroll pressed ahead with his plans for Aston Martin. In September 2021 they began work on their new, state-of-the-art factory, which the team moved into last year.
In May this year Red Bull announced Newey was leaving the team, a decision he had made a month earlier. “I decided to stop at Red Bull really over the Suzuka weekend back in April,” said Newey. “Then, genuinely, I had no idea what would be next.”
Stroll was determined no one would beat him to Newey’s signature. “The most recent talks in earnest began after I read Adrian’s news of his departure,” he said.
“Once I read that I said, well, again, I believe this is meant to be. I believe Adrian will share my vision. He’s a super-smart guy.”
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Newey toured the Aston Martin factory in June. Stroll believes the impression made by their upgraded facilities was a “huge” factor in persuading Newey to join them.
“It’s hard to understand, comprehend or try to explain these three spectacular buildings if you don’t visit,” he said. “It’s a very big part of our tool to make us [into] a championship team.
“We certainly couldn’t have been a championship team with our old tool, that we know. So this had to be built to show our intent, our ambition and to win. So getting Adrian here, I think, was critically important.”
Newey has had negative experiences of teams building new facilities before. In the early noughties, when he was technical director at McLaren, he was frustrated by the changes within the team which came along with their move into the McLaren Technology Centre, and left to join Red Bull in 2005.
However he praised the work done on the new facilities by Stroll and outgoing Aston Martin Group CEO Martin Whitmarsh, whom he worked with at McLaren.
“What Lawrence and Martin have built here, these facilities are just stunning,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to do to build a brand new factory in a greenfield site and have it have a really nice, warm, creative feel to it. Because after all, that’s what we’re here for, to try to be creative and come up with good solutions and particularly with good communication between everybody that works here.
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“I’ve seen some new buildings that haven’t quite fulfilled that but this one has a great feel. The proportions are right, it has all the facilities.”
“I think it’s a real demonstration of Lawrence’s commitment to and vision for where he wants the team to get to,” he added. “I don’t know how much it costs, but it’s not going to be cheap. So it really demonstrates that.”
More importantly, the scale of Aston Martin’s investment convinced Newey that they are serious about becoming championship contenders.
“The combination of seeing all the facilities, how nice they feel and how well thought-out the building is, [is] perhaps most of all a very visual demonstration of Lawrence, actually,” said Newey.
“If I had to describe Lawrence in one sentence, one of the things that I always think is he has total belief. He has a direction and he’s happy to pull his chips on black. And that’s what he’s doing here.”
Other factors fell into place conveniently for Aston Martin, above all their move from being a Mercedes power unit customer to having an exclusive works deal with Honda. Newey rates the manufacturer, who replaced Renault as Red Bull’s power unit supplier in 2019 after he had grown frustrated with their predecessor’s failure to produce a sufficiently competitive engine.
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Red Bull would likely not have split from Honda in the first place had they not announced in 2020 their intention to leave F1. By the time they had decided to return, Red Bull had already committed to the huge expense of building their own power units.
“I’ll be very pleased to stay working with Honda,” said Newey. “I’ve really enjoyed working with them over the last six years at Red Bull. They’re a great bunch of engineers, very easy to work with.”
Aston Martin wasn’t the only team chasing Newey. At one stage Ferrari was considered the favourite to sign him, having tried to do so on three previous occasions without success. But Stroll made a clear impression on the star designer.
“I was very flattered to have a lot of approaches from various teams,” said Newey. “But really Lawrence’s passion and commitment and enthusiasm is very endearing. It is very persuasive.
“The reality is, if you go back 20 years then what we now call team principals were actually the owners of the teams – Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan, et cetera. In this modern era Lawrence is actually unique in being the only properly active team owner.
“That does bring a different feeling when you have somebody like Lawrence involved like that. It’s back to the old-school model.”
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The final element in securing Newey was a significant sweetener: The opportunity to become a shareholder in the team. That was something none of the others chasing his signature were seemingly prepared to offer.
“To have the chance to be a shareholder and a partner is something that hasn’t been offered to me before. So it’s a slightly different slant. It’s one I’m very much looking forward to. It became a very natural choice.”
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