10 months on from announcing his Red Bull exit, Adrian Newey will finally put “pencil on a piece of Aston Martin paper” as the design legend begins work on the 2026 AMR26 on the “fifth, sixth” of March.

After weeks of rumours and whispers in the paddock, Red Bull announced on May 1 last year that Newey would leave the team after an extended gardening leave period during which he’d still work on the RB17, Red Bull’s hypercar.

When does Adrian Newey officially put pencil to paper?

Red Bull initially opted not to disclose the exact timing of the Briton’s exit, only commenting that the 65-year-old “will leave the Red Bull Technology Group in the first quarter of 2025”.

The Red Bull statement added that Newey would be stepping back from Formula 1 design duties to “focus on final development and delivery of Red Bull’s first hypercar, the hugely anticipated RB17.”

The announcement led to intense speculation about his next destination with Ferrari leading the early running amid rumours of airport meetings and Fred Vasseur’s cryptic “five letters” names when it came to Ferrari’s next technical director.

In the end, it was Aston Martin who secured the 26-time championship-winning designer’s services.

More on Adrian Newey’s move to Aston Martin

👉 Adrian Newey: All you need to know about his sensational Aston Martin move

👉Ranked: The top 10 most successful Adrian Newey Formula 1 car designs

Newey committed his long-term future to the Silverstone-based team, the acclaimed designer signing a multi-year contract to take up the newly-created role of Managing Technical Partner in a deal that included shares in the team.

His manager and good friend Eddie Jordan played an integral part in not only negotiating his exit from Red Bull but also his signing with Aston Martin.

But two months into the new year and with the teams already permitted to work on the all-new 2026 F1 cars, Jordan’s fellow podcast host David Coulthard was curious as to when Newey would begin putting pencil to paper on an Aston Martin F1 car.

“Adrian Newey,” Coulthard said on the Formula for Success podcast, “he’s, I guess, getting pretty much toward the end of his time working on the RB17, I believe it’s called, the road car project, the ulti… No, it’s not a road car is it? It’s the ultimate track car.

“And then, when does he officially put pencil to paper? Because he doesn’t use CAD, CAM drawing systems, he’s a old school drawing board man. When does he first put a pencil on a piece of Aston Martin paper and start that design process?”

“Fifth, sixth of March,” Jordan replied. “So his little holiday, his little gardening leave, is coming fast to a close. He’s here in Cape Town with me. Would have been on this show, David he was very keen, but he unfortunately we didn’t quite ring him early enough because he had an appointment.

“But we’re having breakfast tomorrow together before he flies off. But you know, he spends a lot of time here. As you probably know, Amanda is South African. They have a couple of homes, and they enjoy their time here. They sometimes send their dogs down here. The great thing about Adrian is that it’s just so easy. We were at dinner last night together with Mike and Angie Rutherford of Mike and the Mechanics and Genesis.”

Going on to speak about his night on the drums with Mike and The Mechanics at the Grand West Casino, Jordan added: “Adrian and Amanda will be at it. So we’re seeing a lot of them, and they’re enjoying the last few days of freedom, so to speak.”

Newey had previously been asked about his March start date at Aston Martin as that put meant he was two months behind his rival F1 designers.

He revealed on the Autocar podcast that while Red Bull had “blocked” his tools such as CAD, they couldn’t stop him from jotting down the ideas in his head.

“No, they can’t,” he said. “but they’ve blocked my tools.

“So obviously, Aston wants to do the best job they can in ’25, but my main kind of focus will be the ’26 regulations and this big change, because I start on March 2.

“The aero rules come out, I think, 1 January, or might be the second, whatever the working day is.

“So I’ll already be kind of two months behind the curve. But in truth, of course, it’s more than that, because not only will I be behind on the looking at those regulations compared to when they’ve come out…

“With the way the regulations have gone, you really need to be in front of a CAD [computer-aided design] system as well, to be able to understand all the boxes and so forth. They’re so prescribed.

“But also, it will be getting to know a new team, getting to know all the guys and girls there and how we all work together.”

Read next: Doohan v Colapinto ‘projection’ data reveals significant pace gap – report