Aston Martin CEO and Team Principal Andy Cowell has sought to explain how Adrian Newey will fit into its revised and “more efficient” Formula 1 leadership.
Cowell joined Aston Martin last October as CEO but in January confirmed he’d added Team Principal to his list of duties in an organisational shake-up splitting car development into two distinct departments, trackside and Silverstone campus-based.
Former Team Principal Mike Krack was moved into the new role of Chief Trakside Officer and Chief Technical Officer Enrico Cardile was assigned responsibility to head campus operations.
Amid the reshuffle, Tom McCullough was moved to another leadership position within the wider Aston Martin group.
Cowell believes that those changes have streamlined communication and processes at Aston Martin, ahead of welcoming Managing Technical Partner Newey in March.
“I guess the organisational changes we made were really to make the existing organisation more efficient,” Cowell told select media including Motorsport Week ahead of the F1 75 Live event.
“Flatter organisations are naturally more efficient. There are less reporting lines, communication is quicker, there tend to be less reports written, less meetings, and so progress is made quicker.”
Organisational changes not just about Newey
Cowell admits that the organisational changes were made to benefit Newey upon his arrival and give the Formula 1 design guru the chance to mould Aston Martin towards better results.
Beyond that, Cowell simply wanted Aston Martin to be better organisation operationally regardless of Newey’s involvement.
“I guess some of [the changes] was with a view to Adrian coming, but most of it was just to improve the efficiency of our business,” he said.
“Adrian begins the first Monday in March, so a couple of weeks away.
“I’m looking forward to him arriving, everybody on site is excited at the thought of working with him.
“The way we work together is, we talked about that day. When he arrives, there is a new office that’s large enough for a drawing board to go in.
“We’re just excited to have Adrian on board to work on the creativity of our race cars, to work on our methods, the tools that we use, and how we’re all going to lift our quality standards to the point that we make the fastest race car every year. That’s our objective.”
Newey will compliment Aston Martin team effort to produce ‘a great car’
There’s no doubt that Aston Martin hopes Newey will be the catalyst to spur the team on to achieve great success.
However, as has always been the case, F1 is a team sport and Cowell acknowledged that what Newey brings is his knowledge to a growing collective at Aston Martin that will come together to bring the team forward.
“Last year, 248 new people joined Aston Martin Formula 1 team,” Cowell said.
“It’s those people and all the existing people that together, working as a team, will create this great race car.
“Individuals like Adrian have got a great insight into the total car, but it’s all of us working together that will deliver a great car.”
READ MORE – Aston Martin told F1 success will ‘take more than Adrian Newey’
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