Newey to replace Cowell as Aston Martin F1 boss next season
DOHA :Adrian Newey, Formula One's star designer and top technical boffin, will take over as Aston Martin team principal next season with Andy Cowell moving into a strategy role.
The Silverstone-based team announced the senior management restructuring in a statement ahead of the weekend's Qatar Grand Prix.
Newey, whose cars have won 12 drivers' and 13 constructors' titles for three different teams, joined Aston Martin from Red Bull earlier this year as a shareholder and managing technical partner of the team.
The softly-spoken Briton previously won titles at McLaren and Williams after starting out in 1988 at now-defunct March/Leyton House.
It will be the first time the 66-year-old, who worked closely with former team boss Christian Horner and Dutch four-times world champion Max Verstappen at Red Bull, has held the position of principal.
“Over the last nine months, I have seen great individual talent within our team," Newey said in the statement.
"I’m looking forward to taking on this additional role as we put ourselves in the best possible position to compete in 2026, where we will face an entirely new position with Aston Martin now a works team combined with the considerable challenge faced by the new regulations. "
NEW ENGINE ERA IN 2026
Formula One faces a new engine era next season as well as the biggest technical rule changes in decades, and Aston Martin's big-spending Canadian billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll is impatient for success.
Aston Martin, with Stroll's son Lance and Spain's veteran two-times world champion Fernando Alonso, will be on their fourth principal in four years with Newey following Cowell, Mike Krack and Otmar Szafnauer - the latter leaving in January 2022.
After 22 of 24 races, they are languishing in eighth place in the 10-team championship and only four points clear of Sauber.
They will have Honda as exclusive engine partner next year, with the Japanese manufacturer also moving from Red Bull.
There has also been considerable speculation that Horner, ousted by Red Bull in July and looking to come back to F1, could also end up at Aston when he is contractually free to do so some time in the first half of 2026.
Newey said former Mercedes engine supremo Cowell's new role as Chief Strategy Officer, "focusing on the integration of the new PU (power unit) with our three key partners", would be pivotal to the Saudi Aramco-backed team's journey up the grid.
The BBC reported that Cowell, who reports to Stroll, and Newey had disagreed over the running of the team and design of next year's car.
Newey will guide the technical team and also take charge of trackside operations, with Stroll taking care of the business side.
"Andy Cowell has been a great leader this year. He’s focussed on building a world-class team and getting them to work well together, as well as fostering a culture that puts the race car back at the heart of what we do," said Stroll.
"This leadership change is a mutual decision we have reached in the interest of the team. We all look forward to continuing working with him in his new capacity as Chief Strategy Officer.
"I’m also pleased that Adrian Newey will step into the Team Principal role, which will enable him to make full use of his creative and technical expertise."
Cowell said it was the right time for him to take on a different role.
(Additional reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru; editing by Mark Heinrich and Pritha Sarkar)
