Aston Martin's 2025 F1 season may be tough, but that's not why Adrian Newey is taking the reins.
On November 26th, Aston Martin dropped a bombshell: Adrian Newey, a legend in Formula 1 engineering, would become their team principal for the 2026 season.
Newey, who joined Aston on March 1st as managing technical director, will be stepping up from his current role, taking over from Andy Cowell. Cowell, in turn, is shifting to the position of chief strategy officer, a move that comes after replacing Mike Krack earlier in the year.
This means Newey will be Aston's third team principal in just 12 months. Billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll has poured significant investment into the Silverstone-based squad, but the results haven't quite matched the ambition.
Stroll has assembled a dream team, poaching top talent from other teams, including Newey and Cowell, who previously led Mercedes' powertrain division. They've also transformed the old Force India factory into a state-of-the-art facility. However, Aston Martin still faced challenges in the last season of the ground-effect era, finishing seventh in the 2025 constructors’ championship. Fernando Alonso's fifth-place finish in Hungary was their highest achievement.
But here's where it gets controversial: Two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso insists that the team's performance didn't influence the decision to give Newey more responsibility.
"No, I don't think so," Alonso said about the potential impact of poor results. "2025 is a challenging season for us, no doubts. But to be honest, this is not removing the long-term view of the team. The situation we are in is what it is. We are fighting for just the last few points in some races and we are not happy with that. But this is not really influencing any decision or any big change in the team."
Alonso wasn't surprised by the management shake-up. He revealed that Stroll keeps him in the loop, discussing strategy regularly.
"Lawrence is talking to us regularly, once a week on the phone, and when he comes to the races, every day we have lunch or dinner together," Alonso explained. "So we are always in the loop, let's say, on what Lawrence thinks. [He] asks opinions on what will be best for the team, what is missing. So we are very involved always on everything that they are thinking. Obviously, we don't have any power of decisions, but they keep us informed. So this was slowly coming up, that Lawrence was thinking about this thing."
And this is the part most people miss...
What do you think about Aston Martin's decision? Do you believe the team's performance played a role in Newey's promotion? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
