The Aston Martin Formula One team has signed star designer Adrian Newey in a move billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll hopes will turn it into a championship contender.
Newey, who has helped Red Bull Racing to several world titles, will take on his new role as managing technical partner of Aston Martin F1 in March, the outfit said Tuesday.
The BBC reported Newey’s contract to be worth as much as £30 million ($39 million) a year. Aston Martin declined to comment on the size of the deal. Part of the appeal was that he will also become a shareholder of the team, Newey said at a press conference at the headquarters in Silverstone, home to the British grand prix.
“I can tell you, Adrian is a bargain,” Stroll said at the event. “It’s relatively inexpensive for everything Adrian brings as a partner.”
The appointment puts an end to days of intense speculation that Aston Martin would hire Newey, whom many view as the sport’s top designer. The 65-year-old has won 12 drivers’ championships, including seven at Red Bull, where he created the dominant car that has helped Max Verstappen to three straight titles.
Aston Martin, whose drivers include two-time champion Fernando Alonso, is struggling to compete this season and is currently fifth in the constructors’ standings. But a reset of the regulations for 2026 is set to reshape the grid.
In interviews with Bloomberg Television, Stroll and Newey played down expectations that Aston Martin can win the championship as soon as 2026.
“Formula One is incredibly competitive, it’s very difficult to do that as quickly as that,” Newey said. “2026, I think everybody concentrates on it because obviously it’s an opportunity in terms of the big regulation change, but it’s also quite soon for a team that’s still establishing itself.”
Stroll agreed it would take time to become a dominant force in F1. “I wouldn’t say patience is my biggest word but we’re very realistic on the challenges of Formula One,” the Canadian billionaire said. “We believe starting at ‘26 we will be a top challenger and look to win world championships as close to that as possible.”
Stroll confirmed in an interview last week with Bloomberg Television that he was pulling out all the stops to sign Newey.
The billionaire is close to offloading another minority stake in the team to venture capital firm Accel Partners and private credit manager HPS Investment Partners, Sky News reported at the weekend. It follows a Bloomberg report in April that said Stroll was mulling selling another chunk of the F1 team to cash in on the hype around the sport.
It would be the second time Stroll has sold shares in the team following a deal with US private equity firm Arctos Partners last year. Stroll controls the F1 team, which is separate to the listed luxury carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc that he rescued in 2020.
The sport has attracted a wave of new investors in recent years, thanks to a concerted push to grow the audience by owner Liberty Media Group, alongside the success of the Netflix series Drive to Survive.
(Updates with comments from press conference and interviews.)
