New season, big changes in the line ups, but also around the garage as Adrian Newey and Andy Cowell appear. Aston Martin is approaching 2025 with big dreams, supported by yet another reshuffle in personnel.
Quite a few new faces in Silverstone, but certainly the one under the spotlight belongs to a certain Adrian Newey, Red Bull’s legendary designer who has left Milton Keynes after 19 years.
Creating the right enviroment for brilliant minds
The man behind the cars that took Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to win quite a few championships, is now working on the single seater that will take Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll around the globe for the 2025 season.
But is Aston Martin willing to give him freedom to operate? The new Team Principal Andy Cowell seems to have no doubts on that regard.
“Absolutely. Adrian is very competitive, he’s very creative, and as an organisation we need to harness that, not stifle it,” he told Sky Sports News.
“All the people that operate in the creative area, how do we provide an amazing environment – both personally as you come to work, [and] as you work in the building with other people?“
Both people and tools, that’s what Aston is working on improving in order to make a significant step up and create the best surroundings for him to work in.
“How do we make sure the tools are top drawer – the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), the wind tunnel, the manufacturing facilities? And therefore I think that’s the thing that inspires creative people.
“We’re working exceptionally hard to make the racing car our prime focus, to work together in a collaborative way, a high-performance team.”
Winning ambitions for Aston Martin
Last season Aston came 5th, ahead of Alpine, in the constructor’s standings, the aim for the AMR25 is to take a step up and battle with the top teams to bring home some wins.
Not a simple gap to reduce in order to catch up, considering they finished 374 points behind Mercedes last year, but definately a mid term goal to start building for.
“We believe by working like that we’ll get quicker and quicker. We want to win races, we want to win championships, we would like our drivers to be first and second in the drivers’ championship, and we’d love to win back-to-back championships.
“That’s the dream, to have the racing green car to see the chequered flag first, and to do it race after race after race.
“But we’re realistic, we understand that our opponents are exceptionally strong and therefore we need to set tough targets, both in terms of performance and the time that we achieve them, and not leave any gaps, not have any regrets as we go forward.”
Reorganising into a more efficient team
With the new regulations coming into place in 2026, the team is eager to reorganize to give its best. The new season has been seeing many new arrivals from different top teams – including Newey and Ferrari’s Enrico Cardile – and Cowell himself is part of this reshuffles, having joined Aston Martin towards the end of last year.
He arrived with the aim to restructure the team and smoothen the processes, to face the new challenges with the right tools.
“Lawrence [Stroll] was very clear that he wanted me to lead the team, work out what to do, how to inspire everybody, to set the mission, and do it. I’m enjoying that challenge,” he explained.
“One of the first things that we do in the first few months is to look at the organisation and see how it’s working, and I think the changes that we’ve made help make the organisation more efficient.
“A flatter organisation, less layers of management, always makes communication better, makes it more efficient.
“My style is to go and see what’s going on, to see what’s happening within the engineering area, recruitment, IT, and to try to balance all of those areas up.”
