The signing of Adrian Newey from Red Bull is no guarantee of success for Aston Martin in F1 2026 and beyond.

That is the opinion of a former F1 mechanic, who believes addressing Aston Martin‘s struggles with in-season development over recent years will feature on Newey’s to-do list.

Adrian Newey to turn Aston Martin into F1 2026 winners?

Newey, the most decorated individual in F1 history with more than 200 race wins and a combined 26 Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships to his name, announced in September that he is to join Aston Martin in F1 2025.

The 66-year-old has been appointed to the newly created role of managing technical partner, with Newey also becoming an Aston Martin shareholder.

Under the terms of his departure from Red Bull, negotiated by his manager and former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan, Newey will be free to start work with Newey as soon as F1 2025, crucially sidestepping the extended period of gardening leave commonplace in F1 staff contracts.

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As a result, Newey is expected to play an instrumental role in Aston Martin’s preparations for the new F1 2026 regulations, which will mark the start of the team’s technical partnership with current Red Bull engine suppliers Honda.

Following a promising 2023 season during which Fernando Alonso collected a total of eight podium finishes, Aston Martin endured a frustrating F1 2024 campaign en route to a distant fifth place in the Constructors’ standings.

In-season car development once again proved to be a clear weakness, with the performance of the AMR24 chassis fading as the season progressed.

It resulted in Dan Fallows, who previously worked with Newey at Red Bull, leaving his role as technical director and being diverted to another area within the Aston Martin organisation.

Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley believes Newey alone cannot turn Aston Martin into winners despite the team’s encouraging trajectory and refreshed infrastructure.

He told Casino Uden Rofus: “Adrian Newey is a fantastic engineer and has a brilliant mind, but one individual does not guarantee success when developing a new F1 car.

“I’m not saying that Aston Martin don’t have a great team, but we’ve seen evidence that they have been pretty unsuccessful in designing a good car and then developing that car throughout the season.

“Newey is joining a team with very limited success, but Aston Martin have just attained new state-of-the-art factories and the team is growing rapidly.”

In a recent appearance on the Chequered Flag podcast, Alonso pointed to Aston Martin’s use of the Mercedes wind tunnel as a potential factor behind the team’s poor car development.

He said: “It’s not an easy solution or an easy answer because, if not, we will probably do it a little bit easier than what we have found.

“I think [it’s] a problem of  understanding a little bit the insides of the car, some of the wind tunnel problems that I think Mercedes also faced last year [2023] in terms of developing the car.

“Our wind tunnel usage is a little bit limited by using the Mercedes tunnel.

“I think a little bit of [it is] coming from one side, little bit from the wind tunnel, a little bit from our own understanding at the factory.

“It was a mix of things that we think contributed to the lack of development.”

Aston Martin engineering director Luca Furbatto told media including PlanetF1.com at the Italian Grand Prix that the team’s new state-of-the-art wind tunnel is expected to be fully operational ahead of the F1 2025 season.

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