Lawrence Stroll didn’t listen to Adrian Newey’s old colleagues before making him Aston Martin boss

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Adrian Newey was never likely to be a good fit for the Aston Martin team boss role given his past experience in Formula 1.

Newey started work at Aston Martin in March 2025 after joining from Red Bull. At the end of the year, the team announced he would become team principal at the start of 2026, with Andy Cowell reassigned.

But the team are already looking for a new leader amid a disastrous start to the season. They are bottom of the constructors’ championship, below newcomers Cadillac, and have suffered five DNFs in four race weekends.

When will Aston Martin score their first podium of the Adrian Newey era?

And will they get one at all?

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Adrian Newey needs the ‘support’ network he had at Red Bull

Even when the move was first announced, F1 personnel like Zak Brown questioned Newey’s suitability for the role. He is a legendary engineer, arguably the greatest designer in the sport’s history, but wasn’t seen as team principal material.

If anything, the fear externally was that being the boss would distract Newey from his design work.

Former Mercedes design chief Aldo Costa has spoken to Newey’s past colleagues and learned that he was never gifted on the ‘organisational and managerial side’.

One can infer that Stroll either ignored their advice or didn’t canvass their opinions before making the decision. Newey was clearly a spectacular coup but the change to his role late last year increasingly looks like a misstep.

“I’ve never worked with him, so I have a lot of respect for him because he’s perhaps the most successful in Formula 1,” Costa told the Terruzzi Racconta podcast. “I have absolute respect for his technical abilities.

Has Lawrence Stroll made too many changes at Aston Martin?

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“I’ve never worked with him, but the feedback from people who have worked with him is that his excellence, his talent, lies precisely in the technical side, a little less in the organisational and managerial side, so he needs support, that is, he needs to find a group like Red Bull was.”

“At Red Bull, there was a technical director, that is, he wasn’t nominally the technical director.”

Red Bull only created that position in 2018, handing it to Pierre Wache rather than Newey. The Briton instead served as the chief technical officer and was known to have a high degree of freedom.

Christian Horner and Helmut Marko ran the team and acted as the public spokesmen.

What’s going on with Jonathan Wheatley amid Aston Martin delays?

One F1 mechanic has heard that Newey’s relationship with Stroll has suffered, though there’s no doubt over his future within the team.

If Stroll brings in a replacement for Newey, it will free the 67-year-old back up to focus on his preferred responsibilities.

The expectation was that Newey’s former colleague Jonathan Wheatley would join after he was released from his Audi contract.

It’s been nearly two months since that story broke, but there have been no further developments since. That will naturally invite curiosity but, aside from one report that Wheatley returning to Red Bull is possible, there’s no indication of a stumbling block in negotiations.