Guenther Steiner sends Aston Martin warning about Adrian Newey ahead of Red Bull exit

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Adrian Newey will leave Red Bull after 18 years to join Aston Martin in March 2025, but Guenther Steiner has sent his next Formula 1 team a warning about the design legend.

Hiring Newey was one of the first big bits of business that Red Bull targeted upon buying the Jaguar F1 team off Ford. Despite the Briton extending his contract for McLaren in April 2005, Newey then announced in that November that he was joining Red Bull come February 2006.

Many titles later and Newey decided that it was time for a new challenge this May when the Red Bull chief technical officer confirmed he was leaving Milton Keynes. Aston Martin would win the race to get Newey this September when named as their managing technical partner.

Guenther Steiner warns Aston Martin that Adrian Newey ‘cannot do it’ alone

Newey will start his role at Aston Martin on March 1 in 2025 after Red Bull agreed to release the 65-year-old from his contract running through 2025 and not enforce any extra gardening leave. Red Bull also moved Newey aside from their F1 team when they shared his departure.

But former Haas team principal Steiner – who also worked for Red Bull in 2005 – has warned Aston Martin that Newey cannot turn the Silverstone outfit into Formula 1 champions on his own. F1 has never seen an Aston Martin car win a Grand Prix, let alone win a championship.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Aston Martin F1 Team from team principal to lineage

Steiner is adamant that Newey will need Aston Martin to improve their entire operation for the team to improve their performances. Yet hiring Newey puts the outfit on the right track as the most successful designer in Formula 1’s history will entice other ‘big talents’ to join.

“I think one person cannot do it but one person can help,” Steiner told PlanetF1. “But what Adrian does, as well, [is] he will attract other big talent because if you have got somebody like him, it’s not only what he brings himself.

“He’s got his knowledge about the sport [and] his intelligence. But it’s also a lot of good people, young people look and say, ‘I want to work there. I’m motivated because Adrian went there. I want to go there’.”

Aston Martin will have high hopes for Adrian Newey’s impact but he needs them to shine

Aston Martin might hope Steiner is right to suggest that Newey will tempt other ‘big’ names to move to Silverstone. Through the brand’s 90 Grand Prix entries since their first race at the 1959 Dutch GP, Aston Martin drivers have recorded just nine podiums and three fastest laps.

Of their rostrum results, Fernando Alonso secured eight of Aston Martin’s career podiums in F1 during the 2023 season alone after joining from Alpine. But his best finish so far this year remains P5 in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix during the second of the 18 rounds held thus far.

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Newey may have won five constructors’ titles and four drivers’ titles with Williams, a drivers’ championship and two teams’ championships with McLaren plus six constructors’ titles and seven drivers’ titles with Red Bull, but he could have his work cut out to win at Aston Martin.

Aston Martin can also begin working on their car for the major regulation changes in 2026 in January 2025 but Newey will not arrive to lead the project until March 2025. So, he will have to hope the engineers and designers already in Silverstone begin with a project he buys into.