Zak Brown warned Aston Martin about appointing Adrian Newey when he first became team principal

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Adrian Newey’s spell as Aston Martin team principal will be short-lived after the team recognised he wasn’t the right fit for the role. McLaren CEO Zak Brown could see this coming from the outset.

Lawrence Stroll released a statement last week reaffirming his commitment to Newey, but it’s expected that the Briton will return to his previous role of managing technical partner.

Having just left Audi, Jonathan Wheatley is set to become team principal when he has completed a period of gardening leave. The move hasn’t been confirmed but has become a poorly-kept secret at this stage.

Is Jonathan Wheatley the right man to get Aston Martin back on track in 2026?

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Zak Brown told Aston Martin that Adrian Newey couldn’t ‘do it all’

Newey became Aston Martin team principal last November when Stroll took his side in a dispute with former boss Andy Cowell. As Brown told The Sports Agents, Newey is ‘an absolute legend’ in the design department, but he had never held such an expansive role since entering F1 in 1980.

While he was willing to reserve judgement, the American sounded surprised that Aston Martin were diluting Newey’s focus on car development. He has taken a unique approach to the team principal role, skipping the Chinese GP, but has still had to face some unfamiliar responsibilities.

Aston Martin realised Newey wasn’t the right man for the job when they heard his extremely frank media briefings before the Australian GP. Previously, a figure like Christian Horner would have handled these duties.

McLaren’s structure has delivered back-to-back world titles, with Brown running the business and Andrea Stella running the race team. Aston Martin are belatedly altering the division of labour so it aligns with the ‘skillset’ of their staff.

• READ MORE: Helmut Marko claims Adrian Newey is ‘not doing well’ after speaking with Aston Martin boss

“You need to have a certain skillset from a managerial point of view. I know Adrian very well. The guy’s an absolute legend.

“I don’t know their structure. This is just me looking from the outside in. The model that we have at McLaren is that Andrea takes the performance of the racing team, and I take the performance of the business.

“Andrea couldn’t give 100% to what he’s doing if he also had to do what I’m doing. [Newey] can’t do it all. He can’t design a race car and be a team principal, and a CEO. What I don’t know is what parts of the job he’s doing.

“I would want to make sure Adrian is spending 100% of his time on his race car, because that’s his genius. For every meeting he’s in that’s not about designing the race car, where is his skill best?

“When you’ve got the best race car designer ever, I’d want him 100% on designing the car.”

The obvious problem Aston Martin have after poaching Jonathan Wheatley

Aston Martin are in a dire situation after the first two Grands Prix of the year. Neither driver was classified in Australia or China.

The car’s extreme unreliability is tied to its dismal performance. Honda’s engine is down on power and is vibrating so severely that components are being damaged.

In these circumstances, it is critical that senior engineers like Newey, Cowell and Enrico Cardile can take a single-minded approach. Media briefings and factory speeches take up time that they just don’t have.

That is where Wheatley will be so valuable, but it’s unclear how the team will handle the interregnum, which could last around six months.