How Adrian Newey’s Aston Martin salary compares to best-paid football managers including Pep Guardiola

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Adrian Newey has left six-time Formula 1 world champions Red Bull to join the winless Aston Martin project. It’s the most impressive coup yet for feverishly ambitious team owner Lawrence Stroll.

Newey said during his unveiling on Tuesday that he left Red Bull to seek a new challenge. He’s designed title-winning cars for Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen at Milton Keynes and may feel he’s achieved all he can.

Behind the scenes, however, Newey is unhappy with Christian Horner. He believes the team principal has given him too little credit for the team’s success.

Aston Martin may be a midfield team right now – they’re currently fifth in the constructors’ standings – but they have many of the pieces in place to challenge come the 2026 regulation changes. That includes star driver Fernando Alonso and top engineers like Andy Cowell, Enrico Cardile and Dan Fallows.

Whether or not it was a decisive factor, the money on offer clearly played a significant role. According to Sky Sports News, Newey will earn a basic salary of £20m, potentially rising to £30m with bonuses.

This giant wage reflects his status as the greatest designer in F1 history. It will almost certainly be exempt from the cost cap as one of the top three team member salaries.

Adrian Newey will out-earn Pep Guardiola at Aston Martin

To put Newey’s earnings in context, French newspaper L’Equipe published a report last year ranking the highest-paid managers in world football. Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone takes home £29.8m a year, a figure Newey can only surpass if he maximises his bonuses.

However, he comes in ahead of Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, one of the most successful managers ever. Guardiola has won the Premier League six times since arriving in England in 2016, including an unprecedented (and ongoing) run of four in a row.

Guardiola also delivered the Champions League in 2023, earning FIFA’s Best Men’s Coach award. Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti, who took City’s European throne last season, earns £9.6m – less than half Newey’s pay packet.

This illustrates the level of wealth at the front of the Formula 1 grid, Newey’s perceived value and Stroll’s willingness to invest whatever is required to make Aston Martin world champions. That will certainly be the expectation by the end of the decade at the latest.

Adrian Newey rejected late big-money offer from Aston Martin’s rivals

Inevitably, the race for Newey was incredibly competitive, but it’s unclear how many teams were prepared, or able, to match Stroll’s proposal. Indeed, one report claims Ferrari walked away over Newey’s salary demands.

There’s no indication that Mercedes or McLaren got as far as tabling a formal offer. But Alpine did make a late approach for Newey, but it seems his mind was already made up.

Newey says Stroll is ‘unique’ in that he’s ‘properly active’ in the running of the team. This reminds him of his spells at Williams and McLaren.

The Englishman delivered a combined 12 championships with those two teams, and Aston will hope a similar model produces similar results. They’re looking to break the Red Bull/Mercedes duopoly that has taken hold since the end of the noughties.