Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell has lifted the lid on “lunchtime conversations” with Adrian Newey over ways to improve the team’s F1 2025 car.

It comes as Newey prepares to make his first trackside appearance with his new team at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Adrian Newey to appear trackside with Aston Martin at Monaco Grand Prix

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

As reported by PlanetF1.com, Newey is travelling with Aston Martin to Monte Carlo for the eighth round of the F1 2025 season, marking his first trip to a race since confirming his high-profile move from Red Bull last year.

Newey’s primary focus has been on developing Aston Martin’s first car for the new regulations in F1 2026, working alongside incoming engine supplier Honda and team partners Aramco and Valvoline in his role as managing technical partner.

However, Newey recently revealed that he has held “a few lunchtime conversations” over Aston Martin’s current car with team owner Lawrence Stroll keen for the Silverstone outfit “to do as well as we can” in F1 2025.

Newey went on to confirm that he has consulted with the “small group” still working on the AMR25 over “what we can do about it” to improve performance following a tricky start to the new season.

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Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday in Monaco, Cowell confirmed that Newey has been helping to troubleshoot “the issues” with the F1 2025 car in informal chats at the factory.

He said: “When Adrian joined at the beginning of March, we said: ‘Right, we need Adrian to focus on 2026 and the architecture of the car.’

“That’s what he’s primarily been focused on.

“Lunchtime conversations have not just included what he’s eating and what he’s been doing at the weekend.

“It’s also included conversations about our existing car, the ’25 car, and what might be the issues, but it’s a separate engineering team that have been working on the ’25 car.

“As he’s been working on the ’26 car, he gets to see the tools that we’ve got – specifically CFD, wind tunnel, the whole journey of information from a drawing board to wind tunnel results – and with that we learn about what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses and then how do we maintain our strengths and improve our weaknesses.

“So he’s been doing that within the factory.

“This weekend, he’s here and he’ll see the way we operate in a race weekend environment, the way we optimise the car we’ve got, the way we play a different strategy.

“And so having his experience and insight, looking to see what’s going well, what’s not so well, just helps with our jobs list of what to work on to become a stronger team.

“Adrian’s experience, Adrian’s insight, Adrian’s creativity can help the whole team.

“We need to engineer a faster car, but we need to maximise the performance of it until the very last lap of every race, so his insight and creativity will will help absolutely everybody in the team.”

Asked if plans are in place for Newey to attend more races in F1 2025, he added: “Possibly.”

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As reported at the time by PlanetF1.com, Newey found his plans changing in the aftermath of his public unveiling by Aston Martin last September.

The 66-year-old had originally been expected to attend races in the closing months of the F1 2024 campaign, including the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, last October.

However, PlanetF1.com revealed that Newey was taken off Red Bull’s race-travelling team for the tail end of last season, with his presentation as an Aston Martin signing unusually taking place while he was still officially a Red Bull employee.

Meanwhile, it emerged on Wednesday that some elements of the Ferrari team ‘regret’ failing to secure the signing of Newey last year following the news of his Red Bull exit.

Ferrari were heavily linked with a move for Newey upon the announcement of his departure from Red Bull on May 1 2024.

However, the team reportedly baulked at the F1 tech guru’s demands with Ferrari said to have been reluctant to be drawn into a bidding war for Newey’s services.

Newey stands as the most decorated individual in F1 history with involvement in more than 200 race wins and a combined 26 Drivers’ and Constructors’ title triumphs for the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Williams.

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