Jordan breaks silence on Adrian Newey’s Aston Martin deal after ‘long’ Ferrari talks

Eddie Jordan says being granted a position of “total control and responsibility”, akin to something like a team principal, persuaded Adrian Newey to sign with Aston Martin instead of Ferrari.

After Red Bull announced that Newey, their long-time design legend, would leave the team in the first quarter of next year, F1’s rumour mill claimed Ferrari were leading the running to sign him.

EJ answers the big Adrian Newey question: Why Aston Martin?

But after months of speculation, it was suggested a veto clause that Newey wanted, allowing him to choose the team’s design staff, decide on their positions and also rule on any technical agreements, had been baulked at by Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur. That is, after all, a team boss’ job.

With talk of a move to Ferrari fading into the background, Aston Martin then emerged as the front runners to sign the 65-year-old.

That was confirmed during a press briefing, the sort usually reserved for a big-name driver announcement , at the team’s Silverstone headquarters on Tuesday.

Jordan, Newey’s long-time friend and manager, explained why the Briton chose Aston Martin over Ferrari and the rest of the pit lane.

“Adrian Newey, well known by now that he will join Aston Martin from the beginning of March ’25,” he told the latest edition of the Formula For Success podcast.

“Now you might very well ask, why did he go to Aston Martin when there were so many other teams wanting his signature and looking for his future?

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“Well, in my opinion, there’s a couple of very sensible and realistic reasons why.

“One of them was that the position, which is total control [and] responsibility, which he’s never really ever had before with other team principals and other shareholding people and partners, and this is what this offers.

“It offers him a shareholding, a position of total responsibility, of control, and a partnership with Lawrence Stroll and quite clearly that is very different to what has been happening before.

“And so I can imagine and assume that this is a team that perhaps is very similar to where he was when he joined Red Bull, and that is what some 19 years ago, they were a top-five team just like Aston Martin is, with a huge vision, a huge desire from the owner, with Dietrich Mateschitz at Red Bull and of course, Lawrence Stroll at Aston Martin.

“Both, in my opinion, are very similar types of people, hugely successful, entrepreneurial, visionary people who have a great mindset, a passion, a belief and total devotion to what success is all about. And I think this is what will be delivered in time by Adrian to the team at Aston Martin.”

That his two big options, Ferrari or Aston Martin, included working with either Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso was also a consideration for the Briton.

“There’s a couple of other reasons,” Jordan added, “the fact that he has yet to work with Lewis or Fernando was important, that he tried to see what would happen.

“Lewis going to Ferrari. Of course, we did have long discussions with Ferrari, but Aston Martin and Fernando was the one that came back to give what Adrian feels was, if you like, juice to his challenges but he wanted to see how he could get a team just like Red Bull, from the top five up to the top drawer.

“And here’s a team that I believe is now going to be on the move. It’ll be interesting and exciting to see how it unfolds.

“And I have to believe that in the future this has the opportunity and the success that the willingness that somebody like a private team like Aston Martin in the hands of Lawrence Stroll, managed and controlled and engineered by Adrian Newey, has the most unbelievable opportunity to be one of the great teams of the great future.”

Newey confirmed to Sky News after Tuesday’s announcement that working with Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton was something that factored into his decision but alas he couldn’t cover both.

In the end it was what Aston Martin and Stroll offered him, along with the Canadian’s ownership style, that swayed him to choose green over red.

“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I wanted to work with Fernando and I wanted to work with Lewis. And since they’re in different teams, I couldn’t fulfill both,” he said.

“But, I think for various reasons, particularly Lawrence’s sort of offer of shareholding and partnership and his commitment, and the fact that he is the only one of that old model of team owners, where you have an active team owner, like Frank Williams or Ron Dennis or Eddie Jordan. That was the model 20 years ago. Lawrence is the only one who is that model now.”

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