Legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey will join Aston Martin in March 2025 after he officially leaves Red Bull; Newey is one of the most important figures in recent F1 history; Sky Sports F1 answers all your questions about the design genius
Wednesday 11 September 2024 06:10, UK
Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle:
Adrian Newey is a big name in F1. He's had a nasty habit of being involved in multiple championship-winning teams and chassis with 12 constructors and 13 drivers' titles.
He's known as a bit of a genius and tends to bring success along with him. If you are going to have Adrian with you, you need a certain amount of resource and control to go with that to make the best of his skills.
We have 2026 coming up, which Adrian describes as the biggest step change in F1 history due to the chassis, aerodynamics and the engines all changing at the same time.
He's a man you would want onboard at the time.
Sky Sports' Nigel Chiu:
Born in 1958 in Essex, Newey went to the University of Southampton and always had a passion for engineering.
He worked his way up the motorsport ladder designing cars, then landed his first F1 role at the March team in 1988, designing a car which was more competitive than expected.
Newey joined Williams in 1991 and was the pioneer for Nigel Mansell's dominant 1992 season, which was followed by Alain Prost winning the world title in 1993.
Ayrton Senna's death in 1994 when driving for Williams strained relationships but he was still able to work his design magic for Damon Hill's championship triumph in 1996, before joining McLaren in 1997.
New regulation changes were introduced in 1998 and McLaren suddenly became the team to beat under the technical leadership of Newey.
Mika Hakkinen won back-to-back drivers' titles, and it took the mighty combination of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari to deny the Finnish driver another championship in 2000.
Team politics and an unreliable car in the early to mid-2000s plagued McLaren, but they did win races and Kimi Raikkonen was unfortunate to not win a championship there.
Newey joined Red Bull in 2006, where he's played an instrumental role in their success for the last 18 years.
The big regulation changes in 2009 saw Red Bull become a front-running team for the first time, and they narrowly lost out in the drivers' and constructors' title races.
From 2010, though, they were unstoppable as Sebastian Vettel won four championships in a row - as did the team. It took a major power unit change to the current turbo-hybrid engines in 2014 to stop the Red Bull dominance.
Red Bull were hampered by an underperforming Renault car, so they were quick in the corners thanks to the Newey-designed chassis but were unable to seriously challenge Mercedes.
Once powered by Honda from 2019, though, Red Bull were competitive again as Max Verstappen won the 2021 title. The introduction of ground effect cars in 2022 meant Newey was able to design the benchmark car for Red Bull to win both drivers' and constructors' titles in 2022 and 2023.
Newey will join Aston Martin in March 2025 as a Managing Technical Partner and will become a shareholder in the Aston Martin F1 team.
Aston Martin say he will lead the team's 2026 car development as new regulations are introduced to F1 in that year.
Chairman Lawrence Stroll said: "We have a strong team, some of which Adrian has worked with.
"On a day-to-day basis he will be here with full commitment to F1, to give leadership and direction to the team."
Sky Sports News understands Newey will earn a basic salary of £20m, rising to £30m with bonuses.
Sky Sports' Nigel Chiu:
Newey is widely considered as the greatest F1 car designer ever. He's made 14 championship-winning cars and, most importantly for Aston Martin, he generally gets things right when it comes to regulation changes - which we have in 2026.
F1 is more about the performance of the car than the driver. Of course, the driver can make a difference but you ultimately need a fast car to fight for wins and podiums.
Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz:
It's a funny one because last year, they did quite well, Aston Martin. They were scoring podiums. Fernando Alonso almost won a couple of races.
At the moment, Alonso is some 70 points shy of the Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari people in front of him, and he's 24 points ahead of his own team-mate, so Alonso is clearly leading the best of the rest.
Is this a sign that Formula 1 rules aren't closing up the pack?
Alonso said, 'No, it's a sign that our team aren't doing a good enough job.' So I thought that it was quite clear from Alonso that we're in a budget-cap era where all the teams have the same money.
It's up to the people you have and the ideas they come up with that make you into winners - nd that is where Newey can make a difference to this team.
Aston Martin chairman Lawrence Stroll:
"Adrian is a bargain! I've been in business for over 40 years and I've never been more certain.
"He's a shareholder and the best partner I've brought to a company. We intend to be together for a very long time.
"It is relatively inexpensive for everything Adrian brings in a partnership we will have."
65 years old. He turns 66 on December 26, Boxing Day.
Sky Sports News' Craig Slater:
There was an assumption he would go to Ferrari, then we heard Williams and Mercedes were interested, McLaren maybe wanted to take him back and Alpine put in a late bid.
I think a number of those teams didn't want to get into a bidding war for Newey because they knew his salary expectations would be big.
With his basic salary at around £20m, it puts him in the bracket with the top drivers. Only Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are paid significantly more than that. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is paid less than Adrian Newey.
F1 nowadays, because of the cost cap, is more about people than investment and Newey has this three-dimensional and big-picture way of seeing a car design project. He can solve problems and come up with concepts ahead of others.
Since he has stopped at Red Bull, they have seemed to be unable to respond and fix some issues which have come up on their car, so I think Aston Martin believe it is money well spent and they have a bargain here.
Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz:
If it doesn't go well for Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, he might come to Aston Martin for the last couple of years of his F1 career and end up working with Newey in the end! Just an idea. I'm not saying that's going to happen but I think the potential link up at Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton would have been on the pro side.
The other pro side would have been the mystique of working for the Ferrari mark. On the con side, I imagine Newey wouldn't want to uproot his family and move at least part-time to Ferrari.
He can have more influence on a team that needs his genius here than he can tinkering with what is already quite a successful result package at Ferrari.
Ferrari won the last race in Monza so how much do Ferrari need to make them into championship winners? Not as much as Aston Martin need Newey's genius, and I think that would have been a deciding factor for him as well, and to see the incredible level of commitment and investment and these new facilities.
I imagine when Newey came for that secret meeting back before the summer break, he would have looked at this and said: 'You know what this feels like? A young Red Bull Racing. I can do something here.'
Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle:
If you have Adrian Newey onboard and you don't win, then you have wasted Adrian Newey. If you do win, then it is all about Adrian Newey. It is a problem they have to manage.
Red Bull have been extremely good at using the genius of Adrian and compartmentalising other aspects to get the best out of him.
Adrian is 66 years old on Boxing Day. I'm sure this is probably his last roll of the dice with a big team and he will want it to be great success. You can be sure, big-picture stuff, he's the man you want looking at that.
A team like Aston Martin will be a long way north of 1,000 people, and you have to make sure you keep those people motivated and incentivised. They don't want to be bit-part players so it's quite a delicate operation to introduce Adrian into a team like that.
He's worked with Honda at Red Bull. Andy Cowell, the ex-Mercedes engine man, will become Aston Martin CEO.
He will have something in his head already about the really massive change of aerodynamics that go with the new power units for 2026. I'm sure he will have critical ideas and that makes the difference.
Also, he's ruthless. If Adrian wants something, he will get it, even if it's impossible time or budget wise. He will persist until it's right. That's why you need a team who have invested heavily to make the best use of it.
Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle:
Absolutely. That's the thing with Newey. You will attract the star players who want to be part of that. There's no price list for F1 drivers, Premier League footballers or the likes of Adrian Newey.
You are worth what someone is willing to pay you. Lawrence Stroll isn't a billionaire because he's careless or frivolous with money.
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