Adrian Newey has revealed how Lawrence Stroll’s “unique” role as an active Formula 1 team owner in the modern era was vital in him opting to move to Aston Martin.
Aston Martin has announced the much-anticipated news that Newey will become the side’s new Managing Technical Partner once his Red Bull stint ends next March.
Red Bull announced earlier this season that Newey had communicated his desire to bring the curtain down on an association that has spanned close to two decades.
The Briton, who has delivered seven Drivers’ and six Constructors’ titles to Red Bull, divulged that he made the definitive decision to leave his long-serving role in April.
Asked to highlight the leading aspect that brought him to Aston Martin, Newey, who will oversee the team’s technical department, replied: “Lawrence, that’s easy!
“No seriously, I think I felt as if I needed a new challenge and so kind of towards the end of April I decided I needed to do something different.
“Spent a lot of time with Mandy, my wife, kind of discussing okay what’s next, what do we do?
“Do I kind of go off and sail or do we go off and sail around the world? Do I do something different, to marry this couple or whatever?
“So we took a bit of time out and I felt I’ve been lucky enough to have achieved what I aspired to from the age of 10 or 12 which was simply to be a designer.
“I don’t even know the word engineer. In motor racing and I can honestly say everything else has been a bonus having sort of achieved that straight out of uni.
“I never of course expected anything like what I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with.
“But you have to keep yourself, you have to be honest with yourself, you have to keep yourself fresh and so I felt I needed a new challenge. So I took a bit of time off.”
Newey, who has designed championship-winning cars at Williams and McLaren in an F1 career that began in 1988, divulged how integral Stroll was in his latest move.
The Canadian billionaire has adopted a hands-on approach since taking the reins in 2018, which has made Newey recall similarities to how the series used to operate.
“Lawrence and I have known each other off and on over the years,” he continued.
“We often bump into each other in the gym, particularly at the Middle East and Far East races.
“So as I kind of said, announced to everybody that I would be departing the old team then I was flattered too, very flattered to have a lot of approaches from various teams.
“But really Lawrence’s passion and commitment and enthusiasm is very endearing, it’s very persuasive.
“The reality is if you go back 20 years then what we now call team principals are actually the owners of the teams. Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan etc.
“In this modern era then Lawrence is actually unique in being the only properly active team owner and I think that does bring, it’s a different feeling when you have somebody like Lawrence involved like that.
“It’s back to the old school model and to have the chance to be a shareholder and a partner is something that hasn’t been offered to me before.
“So it’s a slightly different slant, it’s one I’m very much looking forward to. It became a very natural choice.”
