24/05/2025
NEWS STORY
"If we're to ever attract Max, the first thing we have to do is make a fast car," says design guru, Adrian Newey on first race outing with Aston Martin.
While the official FIA press conference saw Toto Wolff joined by two former colleagues now heading rival teams, James Vowles and Andy Cowell, at Red Bull Christian Horner saw former star designer Adrian Newey in Aston Martin's colours for the first time.
Signed on a reputed £30m a year, Newey, who has won numerous titles with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, is part of Lawrence Stroll's bid to take Aston Martin to the front of the grid.
Monaco marks the design legend's first race weekend appearance for his new team, and while he is focussed on the 2026 car, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll desperately need him to 'do his magic' with the current contender.
Despite Stroll Snr's 'money no object' determination however, Newey admits that the team still has much work to do if it is to take on the likes of McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and his old team.
"It's fair to say that some of our tools are weak," he told reporters. "The driver-in-the-loop simulator needs a lot of work," he admitted, "because it's not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool.
"There's a lot of individually very, very good people," he added, backing up Cowell's first impressions of the Silverstone-based team. "We just need to try to get them working together, perhaps in a slightly better organised way.
"That's simply a result of the roots of the team at Jordan, that became Force India, that became Racing Point, and was as such always a small but slightly over-performing team, to now in a very short space of time a very big team that the truth is has been underperforming this year."
Having previously admitted that he'd always wanted to work with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, with the Briton heading to Maranello, the team Newey turned down, he will at least get to work with the Spaniard.
"Fernando, he's such a cool character," he said of the two-time world champion. "He's been an enemy for many years, along with Lewis, and I think I've said before that you can only work with so many drivers, but two drivers I always wanted that I felt I would enjoy working with, were Lewis and Fernando, and I couldn't work with both, so at least I got one of them.
"It's only when you get to the race track that you really start to develop that relationship," he added, "so I'm looking forward to that developing a little bit this season, but particularly next season."
Of course, Newey comes off the back of providing four championship-winning cars for Max Verstappen. Asked about speculation linking the Dutchman with Aston Martin, Newey replied: "If we're to ever attract Max, the first thing we have to do is make a fast car."
Asked when, indeed if, that might be possible, he admitted he had "no idea".
Speaking about his focus on next season's car, he said: "I had a weekend off two weeks ago, other than that it's been pretty much full-on since I started in March.
"My wife, she kind of says I go into a design trance," he laughed, "and I can understand what she means. When I get into a period of intense concentration I tend to not see left and right. All my processing power is going into the one area, which is trying to work with everybody to design a fast racing car.
"When I first looked at the 2026 rules, my first reaction was, 'God, this doesn't leave much'," he admitted. "But then you start to drill into the detail, and there is a reasonable amount of flexibility. Of course, I'd always like more.
"I'd imagine you'll see some different solutions at the start of next year. Then, of course, as has happened with these regs, three or four seasons in, everybody starts to converge."
Check out our Friday gallery from Monaco here.