Red Bull announced that Adrian Newey would be leaving the team in May last year, and soon it was revealed that Aston Martin would be his new destination. Newey is currently serving his mandatory gardening leave before he joins the Silverstone team in March. 12 months ago, however, thinking about being in this situation would have been unfathomable for the Briton.
Newey joined Red Bull in 2005. That’s when the team itself kickstarted its journey in F1 and over the years, Newey oversaw almost all aspects of its technical growth, particularly when it came to designing cars. Six Constructors’ championship wins could be credited to Newey’s genius, and for him, that was enough.
“For various reasons, I felt that I wasn’t being true to myself if I stayed at Red Bull. So the first difficult decision was that. Do I stay at Red Bull or not?” he told Michael Schmidt of AMuS in a recent video interview.
Adrian Newey told Michael Schmidt (AMuS): “f you had asked me 12 months ago if I would leave Red Bull and then start over in another team, I would have said: ‘No, you’re crazy!'”
1/3 https://t.co/wy3ocq2NOa pic.twitter.com/aELGdjlKZT
— Junaid #JB17 (@JunaidSamodien_) January 27, 2025
In search of a new challenge, he decided to join a team that is expected to step into Championship territory soon. But if Newey was asked the same question last January, he would have deemed it a ‘crazy’ possibility.
“Obviously I came to the conclusion that, being honest with myself, I couldn’t [continue with Red Bull]. And then, having made that decision, it was a question of what to do next.”
Back when Newey became a member of the Red Bull family in the late 2000s, many had discounted it as an ‘energy drinks team’ that would never make a true mark in F1. He left them as the best team on the grid. Two decades later, the 66-year-old has joined hands with Aston Martin, a team with the ambition of becoming the undisputed fastest in the sport.
Newey to spearhead Aston Martin’s revolution
Aston Martin’s owner Lawrence Stroll doesn’t just want that tag next to him and wishes to make millions of dollars through his venture in F1. He wants to take Aston Martin to the top of F1.
He already signed Fernando Alonso in 2023, and the two-time world champion is completely aligned with this project. The Silverstone-based outfit even got eight podium finishes that year, courtesy of Alonso, showing signs of progress but tumbled down in 2024 with zero top-three finishes.
Stroll, however, already has a plan set in motion to change that. He signed Newey to lead the technical division, by paying him around $40 million a year and also handing him shares of the team. Plus, he has also invested more than $100 million in a state-of-the-art facility, which also includes a wind tunnel that is set to be operational by the time Newey joins in March.
Progress may not be evident in 2025 because Newey will start working after the AMR25 has been developed. But if things go well, Aston Martin could make a challenge for the top spots in 2026, which is also when new regulations take effect — something Newey will already have on his mind.
