Adrian Newey’s other shoe dropped on Tuesday when he picked a suitor, one of many who were courting the Red Bull chief technical officer for the 2025 season and beyond. The winner was Aston Martin, bankrolled by chairman (and clothing magnate) Lawrence Stroll, who Forbes says has a net worth of £3 billion.
That fortune has been depleted a bit by Newey’s rumoured salary, which one F1 source has reported works out to £3420 an hour, more than all but a couple of drivers on the grid, one of them being Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the other Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari. The smart money said Newey, 65, would sign with the team in red to get to work with Hamilton, but Stroll’s money was smarter.
Multiple teams, including Aston and Ferrari, wanted Newey to design their car for 2026, when F1 rules change substantially. Newey goes to work for Aston in March, and the technical specs from F1 will be released in January, so he’ll be a bit behind in catching up. It will help, though, that he will continue to work with Honda as the engine supplier.
Newey was at Red Bull for almost 20 years, delivering six manufacturers’ titles and 117 wins. As Aston Martin’s “managing technical partner,” he’ll oversee all aspects of Aston’s new car.
“When I decided to stop with Red Bull, at that point in time, I genuinely had no idea what I was going to do next,” he told F1. “So, Amanda my wife decided, let’s just have a bit of a break! I was hoping at some point in time, I’d be standing in the shower and have a moment of inspiration – ’yep, let’s go in that direction’. That didn’t happen, it was a much slower process. We decided that I’d get bored doing nothing, and if I was going to stay in man and machine sport, I’d stay in Formula 1. It was then about which team.”
Currently, Verstappen leads the 2024 drivers’ championship points, with co-driver Sergio Perez in seventh. Aston Martin’s top driver, Fernando Alonso, is ninth, followed immediately by teammate Lance Stroll, chairman Lawrence Stroll’s son, in 10th.
