Adrian Newey has revealed the parallels between the early days of his stint with Red Bull as compared to his latest Formula 1 project at Aston Martin.
After spending 19 years with the Milton Keynes-based squad, helping it to eight Drivers and six Constructors’ titles, Newey called it quits on his time with Red Bull last year.
Hot on the heels of his departure, Lawrence Stroll-led Aston Martin announced it had signed the 66-year-old up as its Managing Technical Partner.
Newey began his tenure with the Silverstone-based team in March and has already begun working on the team’s 2026 challenger.
“I started in March. Difficult to judge,” he said on James Allen’s podcast when asked if he could gauge the progress at Aston Martin so far.
“Because of this big regulation change, then everybody has a bit of a reset.
“Chances are that the top teams this year will be the top teams next year. But occasionally, there’s a bit of disruption, let’s say.”
From next season onwards, the sport will introduce a revamped technical ruleset that will see sweeping changes to both the power unit and chassis side of things.
And while Newey predicts a surprise dark horse to elevate themselves towards the sharp end of the field, he erred on the side of caution to nominate Aston Martin as the one to look out.
“It happened the last time there was a big regulation change to an extent in 2009, where Ferrari and McLaren, who were the big ones in 2008, floundered, and Brawn and Red Bull came forwards,” he explained.
“So it does happen, but by and large, the same teams kind of tend to keep on at the top.
“But I think the main point is that you ask, how’s it going? The honest truth is I’ve got no idea.
“Because it’s this reset, you don’t know whether you’re doing good, bad or indifferently relative to the opposition, because you have no knowledge of what they’re doing.”
Newey reveals Red Bull culture change he hopes to bring to Aston Martin
Aston Martin, even in its previous avatars as Force India and Racing Point, has been a perennial midfield runner.
Apart from the odd strong result, the Silverstone-based squad has failed to make any significant impression towards the front of the grid.
Comparing his early days with Red Bull, when the team had just transitioned from the doomed Jaguar-Ford works team, Newey drew parallels with the culture within Aston Martin.
“But I think also on the how’s it going question, I think this is also the culture thing,” added Newey.
“So Red Bull, when I started, was the ashes of Team Jaguar, that had been under Ford management for many years and had never had any significant success, and so, people had started to lose belief that they could ever win a race.”
The 66-year-old hinted at how he sees the same lack of motivation at Aston Martin, but hopes to see the same trajectory he oversaw at Red Bull emulated in the coming years.
“Once you stop believing that you can do that, then, everything goes wrong, because complacency sets in, laziness sets in, lack of self-belief creeps in,” he said.
“If you’re not careful, blame culture can set in as well. And so that was quite a difficult thing to overturn at Red Bull.
“I won’t say too much, but there is a bit of deja vu at the moment.”
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