Five reasons why Adrian Newey’s big-money Aston Martin move makes sense

Earlier this year it was announced that Adrian Newey would be leaving Red Bull after 19 years with the team. That, naturally, set the rumour mill into overdrive with Newey being linked with a move to several teams up and down the grid.

However, after much speculation, it has now been made official that he will be joining Aston Martin – a team he’s been heavily linked to – from next season. So, with that, we take a look at five reasons why the highly decorated designer’s move to Aston Martin makes so much sense.

Why Adrian Newey moving to Aston Martin makes sense

1: Money, Money, Money

Let’s start by getting the elephant in the room out of the way – the money. Whilst Adrian Newey’s decision is unlikely to be entirely financially motivated, a big pay cheque is always going to turn anyone’s head and will absolutely have been a factor when it came to making a call on his future.

It has been reported, first by the BBC, that Newey has put pen to paper on a five-year deal with Lawrence Stroll’s team and is possibly set to earn up to £30million a year, by way of salary and shares annually, once bonuses and add-ons are included.

That means, assuming the reported figures are accurate, Newey is set to earn around a whopping £150million as a result of the deal. That £30million reported figure would be around double his reported annual salary with Red Bull Racing too. Again, it may not have been the deciding factor, but that’s a huge pay rise.

2: Aston Martin investment

But one of the other major reasons this all makes a lot of sense is the huge amount of investment that has been going on at the Silverstone team over the last few years and, indeed, the huge ambition Lawrence Stroll has for the future.

The team has already completed several steps of its Silverstone headquarters development, including construction of the new AMR Technology Centre, which opened in July last year, and will be home to its R&D, commercial and IT departments as well as engineers.

The investment doesn’t end there though with a new simulator in the works and a brand new state-of-the-art wind tunnel has begun the process of being commissioned ahead of entering full use over the winter.

So, exciting times ahead for the team. But the idea of going from working with the oldest wind tunnel, a facility described by Christian Horner last year as a “Cold War relic” – albeit a heavily upgraded one – to working with a brand new, state-of-the art tunnel ahead of the design of the 2026 car, will surely also excite Newey.

On top of all of that investment, Lawrence Stroll has made no secret of the fact that he wants to take Aston Martin to the very top of Formula 1 and win championships in the coming years – a target Newey has proven many times throughout his career that he is more than capable of helping teams hit – having won titles with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull.

It’s an exciting challenge for the designer to, potentially at least, end his career with. And taking on the challenge of turning Aston Martin into title winners, beating Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren along the way, would further cement his legacy in F1 and across the wider sporting world.

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3: Control

Part of all that, but worthy of its own bullet point, is control. Following the announcement of his impending departure from Red Bull, Ferrari were almost immediately listed as the favourites to land Newey – someone they have chased many times over the years. However, they’ve missed out once again and although there have been reports of the team wanting to avoid entering into a bidding war to secure the designer’s services, there is, reportedly, another reason.

According to Italian publication AutoSprint, Ferrari were happy to match whatever salary demands Newey made as they tried to do whatever it took to secure his signature, but then he asked for ‘decision-making powers that are the prerogative of the team principal’, and Vasseur apparently said “no” as Newey wanted the ‘right of a veto on the hiring of new engineers, the allocation of roles, and the acceptance of technical partnerships.’

That hasn’t been officially revealed as a reason and may never be, but Vasseur could have dropped a hint about his stance when he spoke to the media including PlanetF1.com at the Hungarian Grand Prix in July, where he said: “I always push to explain that individuals are less important than the group, and it is true when you are signing someone, and it is when you are losing someone. The stability of the group is important, and that the other people are working very well together.”

It would make sense for someone of Newey’s calibre to demand full control when it comes to decision making powers – to be given the power he needs to fully function – and perhaps that’s something he was offered assurances of when negotiating with Aston Martin.

On the subject of Ferrari, it has been widely rumoured that Newey’s preference was always to remain in the UK and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a switch to the Scuderia would likely have meant relocating to Maranello in Italy – although it is 2024 and so flexible, remote working opportunities may have been available – that sounds like a line from a job posting on LinkedIn, doesn’t it?

But anyway, with Aston being based at Silverstone, that’s something he doesn’t have to worry about.

4: Reunions

Next up, a move to Aston Martin also means that Adrian Newey will get to reunite with a few familiar faces. Dan Fallows was a key figure within Red Bull for 15 years and stepped up to become head of aerodynamics in 2014, which resulted in him working closely with Newey before eventually making the switch to Aston Martin ahead of the 2022 season.

But the big reunion is surely the return to working with Honda. The Japanese manufacturer will provide Aston Martin with power units from the start of the new regulations in 2026. With Newey having worked with them in recent years at Red Bull – a partnership which resulted in title-winning success – that experience will likely help to accelerate their integration.

A new set of regulations offers up a lot of uncertainty, and if you pair that with having to work with a new engine supplier, there are a lot of unknowns to deal with. However, the knowledge Newey has of working with Honda could have a massive impact on that and those ambitions Lawrence Stoll has of title challenges.

5: The Alonso Factor

And the final point we’ve picked out is The Alonso Factor. For starters, the idea of working with a driver like Fernando Alonso will be a huge draw for, more or less, any engineer, designer, team boss – virtually anyone in F1. So, that in itself, is a huge opportunity.

After all, he is a double World Champion and, although 2024 has been a more difficult year, the Spaniard proved last season that if you give him a car capable of challenging, he will get the most out of it and deliver some impressive drives and strong results. He’s clearly still capable of operating on an extremely high level.

Now, Adrian Newey has worked with some huge names in F1 including the likes of Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, who have all driven his cars to World Championship glory.

However, last year, Newey revealed to the Beyond the Grid podcast, that there were two drivers he regretted not working with across his years in Formula 1. One of those was Lewis Hamilton – something he could have rectified had he chosen Ferrari as his next destination – but the other was Fernando Alonso.

By signing with Aston Martin for the future, he gets to scratch that itch. As does Alonso who said last year that Newey was a “legend” of the sport who he wished he’d get to work with one day. Well, that day is not too far away now.

Having a driver who is as good as Alonso is at extracting the maximum performance from any F1 car will be a huge benefit to Newey. His feedback and experience will be invaluable and that can surely only stand Aston Martin in good stead. Equally, having a car designed by Newey – as part of a strong team of designers and engineers – it should give Alonso everything he needs to push for that elusive third World Championship title.

In conclusion…

As good as Adrian Newey, Fernando Alonso and many others within Aston Martin are though, success is never a guarantee. So, although there are huge ambitions at the Silverstone based team and massive investment in its future, it could still all come to nothing. Especially in a field that is getting more and more competitive and the uncertainty a new set of regulations inevitably brings.

However, although success is never guaranteed, Aston Martin and Lawrence Stroll are putting all the pieces in place to give them the best possible shot at hitting those targets and ambitions, and whatever happens as a result, they are in a great place behind the scenes and the future looks incredibly bright.

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