Adrian Newey is due to take charge as the new managing technical partner of Aston Martin in March, but Andy Cowell is already making changes at the Formula 1 team.
The Silverstone outfit secured a superb coup last year when Aston Martin hired Newey after he quit Red Bull. Newey is the most successful designer in Formula 1 history as his creations have won 12 constructors’ championships and 14 drivers’ titles across the last four decades.
Aston Martin gave 5% of the F1 team’s shares to Newey to help convince the 66-year-old to join them. Every Formula 1 team targeted the Briton’s services after Red Bull announced he was to leave, with Aston Martin eventually hiring Newey last September to join on March 2.
Andy Cowell takes over as Aston Martin team principal to ‘unencumber’ Adrian Newey
Newey will sit alongside Cowell at the very top of the hierarchy structure at Aston Martin as billionaire Canadian owner Lawrence Stroll continues his bid to make the Silverstone crew a championship-winning team. And Cowell is already making changes before Newey’s arrival.
Cowell only joined Aston Martin as the Formula 1 team’s chief executive officer last October but has even now replaced Mike Krack as the team principal. The former managing director of Mercedes High Performance Powertrains will serve both roles during the 2025 campaign.
READ MORE: All you need to know about Aston Martin CEO and team principal Andy Cowell
Respected journalist Mark Hughes feels Cowell demoting Krack to the role of chief trackside officer at Aston Martin shows he is already sharing a vision with Newey for how the F1 team must operate. Cowell is also making life easier for Newey to make a bigger impact on arrival.
“There is very much a sense that Cowell and Newey are already sharing a vision of how they need things to be in order to fully exploit the team’s formidable new facilities,” Hughes told Motor Sport Magazine.
“Cowell is doing the hard spade work of making those changes so as to give Newey a clear run at whatever his technical vision is for the next generation of F1 cars, unencumbered by getting the frameworks in place.
“In that way, they maximise the chances of Adrian being able to hit the ground running when he joins.”
Lawrence Stroll will demand results from Andy Cowell and Adrian Newey under F1’s 2026 regulations
With Aston Martin stripping Krack of the title of team principal, their chief trackside officer and in-bound chief technical officer Enrico Cardile will both report directly into CEO Cowell and managing technical partner Newey as they get the team ready for the 2026 campaign.
READ MORE: All you need to know about Formula 1’s 2026 engine and chassis regulations
The 2025 season will not be Newey’s focus at Aston Martin with Stroll hiring him to design what car Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll with drive under F1’s 2026 chassis regulations. Stroll also hired Cowell as CEO to ensure they are ready to be a works Honda engine team.
Aston Martin will also become a full works entry under F1’s 2026 power unit regulations as Honda will leave Red Bull, who have joined forces with Ford to build their own engines as a result. If the Aston Martin project fails, Stroll will demand answers from Cowell and Newey.
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