Aston Martin chief reveals Adrian Newey input as 2025 season begins

Adrian Newey will focus solely on Aston Martin's 2026 F1 car.

As the 2025 Formula 1 season begins, questions surrounding Adrian Newey's input during 2025 have been answered by Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell. He has confirmed that the former Red Bull CTO will be working exclusively on the 2026 car as the Silverstone team readies itself for the change in regulations.

Newey has joined Aston Martin as managing technical partner starting at the beginning of March, and he's wasted no time getting to work. But his responsibilities aren't covering that of the AMR25, this years contender. According to Cowell, the designer's attention will purely revolve around next year's car.

"Adrian’s been focused on the 2026 car," the team chief told Sky Sports F1. "He arrived, walked up the stairs into his office, nice new drawing board there, and he’s got straight into the details of the 2026 regulations and what can be done there."

When asked if Newey would have any input on the current car, he was clear with his answer: "Not so much this car, no.

"We're putting a huge amount of effort into 2026. We become a works team developing the power unit with Honda, Aramco fuel and lubricants, and just using all the equipment we’ve got in the new factory, on campus, and figuring out how to pull all of that together to give us a good step forward."

Adrian Newey, Managing Technical Partner, Aston Martin F1 Team, Lawrence Stroll, Owner, Aston Martin F1 Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Despite only being at the team for just over ten days, Newey's influence on the team has already made an impression at the outfit's Silverstone headquarters. But 2025 will see plenty of challenges for Aston Martin. The AMR25 showed underwhelming performance during pre-season testing in Bahrain, with the team completing the second-fewest laps and failing to make a mark on the timesheets.

Cowell said during a difficult few days testing:

"Initial feedback from Lance [Stroll] and Fernando [Alonso] suggests we have made progress with the drivability of the car, but we have also discovered areas that could be better and need more focus.

"It is very early days to be making any judgements on how much progress we have made during the winter and how we compare to our competition.

"We have been focused on ourselves; we have just kept our heads down to get the data and information we need before the racing begins."