Adrian Newey anticipated one big Mercedes problem before their final seasons with Lewis Hamilton

Adrian Newey will face a new challenge for the first time in nearly 20 years as he moves from Red Bull to Aston Martin this season.

The car designing mastermind is tasked with leading a midfield operation to the front of the pack for the first time in their Formula 1 history.

Newey has won 25 titles across his time with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, including 12 constructors’ and 13 drivers’ championships.

Peter Windsor thinks it’s a good thing Newey left Red Bull despite leading them to six titles in the last four seasons.

At the age of 65, his new project with Aston Martin will probably be his last before retirement, with the 2026 F1 regulations posing a unique challenge for him.

He mastered the last set of rule changes, whereas some of his rivals dropped off including Mercedes, who suffered with a phenomenon that he predicted might happen.

Adrian Newey knew that bouncing would be a ‘problem’ before it hit Mercedes in 2022

Fernando Alonso has warned Newey will 100% struggle with Aston Martin in 2025 as the team turns their focus to the new regulations and may drop even further down the field.

He does get to work with a two-time champion who is one of the men he says he has always wanted to work with before the end of his career.

Back in 2022, the sport was undergoing a big regulation change (one year delayed) and Mercedes adopted an ambitious zero sidepod design.

It didn’t work out and has set them back for years. They suffered with a sensation called porpoising or ‘bouncing’ as some refer to it which affected their setups and slowed them down.

READ MORE: Aston Martin sent Newey warning by Steiner ahead of Red Bull exit

Newey says he knew that this would be an issue based on prior experience with designing Venturi cars back in the early 1980s.

“Certainly knew that what we now call bouncing was potentially a problem,” he said. “I usually understand that many of the designers in Formula 1 or aerodynamicists or whatever were not in Formula 1 when Formula 1 had Venturi cars because they were banned at the end of 1982.

“You’ve got to be of my age really to remember it. It’s still a well-known problem that sports cars, LMP cars, you see them struggle with that all the time.”

Why Adrian Newey didn’t go back to Williams instead of Aston Martin

Williams’ James Vowles didn’t want to sign Newey from Red Bull because he didn’t believe that his team was ready for someone of his calibre.

Aston Martin have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in their infrastructure, to create state-of-the-art facilities which will be the foundations for their charge in the long term.

READ MORE: Adrian Newey wants Aston Martin to hire someone on £2.5m-a-year driver’s level

While Williams are on a similar path, they aren’t quite at the same stage yet, which caused the Grove-based outfit to miss out on a reunion with a man who led them to titles in the 1990s.

Instead, Newey can be excited to work with Aston Martin genius Andy Cowell who was the mastermind behind much of Mercedes’ early domination from 2014 to 2021.

He helped to pioneer their power unit which was the trademark of excellence for the first few years of the turbo-hybrid era. They could create something special together.