Aston Martin has spent much of its 96 races fighting in the midfield, but there are grand plans taking shape in the background that could see it achieve title success.
The British marquee’s story dates all the way back to the 1950s, during which time they only entered six races and achieved zero points before pulling out of motorsport entirely to focus on sportscar racing.
It would be a decades-long wait until they finally scored points in F1 with Lance Stroll at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, and while they came close to a win with Sebastian Vettel at the Azerbaijan and Hungarian Grands Prix the same year, they have struggled to get it over the line in first.
Fernando Alonso had a couple of opportunities in 2023 when he achieved a record eight podiums for the team, although they had no chance up against the dominant Red Bull RB19. Alonso admitted Aston Martin’s struggles during the 2024 season would make things a lot more difficult, but in the background, the team has been hatching plans for its assault on the 2026 regulations.
After significant investment into building Aston Martin’s first wind tunnel and upgraded facilities by billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll, legendary designer Adrian Newey was announced as joining the team from early 2025.
While Newey is a headline signing for any team, he has also been joined by another significant figurehead who was responsible for success at Mercedes during their dominating period in the hybrid era.
Andy Cowell will be ‘fascinating’ at Aston Martin
The benchmark team in F1 during the hybrid era has been Mercedes, having dominated between the 2014 and 2021 seasons as consecutive winners of the Constructors’ Championship.
Part of this was down to the engine package they used, whose development was overseen by former Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains boss Andy Cowell. After he left Mercedes in 2023, Cowell joined Aston Martin last year as Chief Executive Officer before moving into the role of team principal for 2025.
Former Mercedes head Ian James, who now works at McLaren heading their Formula E operation, praised Cowell when speaking to SoyMotor.com.
“Andy [Cowell] set the pace in the organization. He is passionate about careers and also a very talented engineer, and above all, he was able to get the whole team to adapt to his way of thinking,” said James.
“That clarity of focus was incredible. It will be fascinating to see how he does in his new role in Aston Martin, which is very different, but I think he will enjoy the challenge.”
Is Andy Cowell a more significant hire than Adrian Newey?
Newey is seen as a cheat code in F1 because of his ability to extract the grey areas out of a set of new regulations, something he achieved with Red Bull throughout his career.
He will be a significant asset when it comes to optimising their 2026 package and guiding their engineering talent when using their new wind tunnel facilities, especially now that F1 teams are restricted in the amount of time they can use.
Cowell is a more practical and hands-on figure within the team, with his new role as team principal representing the shift a lot of teams have made in putting the engineering talent at the forefront. It has worked for Haas, Williams, Ferrari, Racing Bulls, and now we’ll see it in action at Aston Martin this year.
His experience in building and optimising the complex F1 power units is also to be underestimated, especially given Aston Martin will be switching to Honda power units from 2026.
READ MORE: Who is Andy Cowell? Everything you need to know about Aston Martin’s F1 CEO and team principal
Cowell already believes that a major issue that plagued Fernando Alonso last season has been fixed with their 2025 car, which should give them a bit of a moral boost and the Spaniard more drive to continue in 2026.
The superteam of Cowell and Newey, coupled with the experience of Alonso will surely make Aston Martin a force to be reckoned with in 2026.
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