Newey is “provoking” Aston Martin in key areas

Andy Cowell says Adrian Newey’s recent comments in the media have provoked Aston Martin’s design team to help speed up the outfit’s development.

Newey sparked a warning that despite the team’s state-of-the-art Silverstone HQ possessing the best equipment, there was a problem with the data correlating with the simulator.

Newey identified Aston’s loop simulator as an area of weakness and that rectifying the issue was “probably a two-year project in truth”.

However, speaking on the James Allen on F1 podcast, Cowell said his design team has leapt on those comments with a view to proving the legendary designer wrong with his prediction.

Cowell said: “Everything that we’re doing can improve and needs to improve. Adrian thinks the same. The great thing with Adrian is he knows the level that we need to get to. So he’s setting high standards. I’m setting tough standards within the organisation. And then it’s about how quickly can we get there. 

“Is it going to take us two years to get there? No, it’s not. Is Adrian provoking people? Yes, he is. As is Lawrence [Stroll] and Fernando [Alonso] and Lance [Stroll] and myself and many other people within the organisation. 

“We are all setting high standards to achieve. And the competitive advantage comes from how quickly you achieve it.

“So Adrian’s provoking us. He’s saying it’s going to take everybody two years to achieve that. And everybody in the factory that I’ve spoken to that’s working around the design team is going, ‘well, we’ll show him! We’ll turn it into months rather than years’.”

Cowell, the team’s CEO and team principal, first worked with Newey back in 2004 when the latter was at McLaren; he was working for Mercedes at the time, and says the two have rekindled their working relationship and have open discussions about the improvements they can make.

He added: “I worked together with Adrian, but that’s a long time ago now. The last two months we’ve been working together, and it’s very enjoyable. Adrian isn’t interested in people management, business organisation, or the way of stitching everything together so that we’re all focused on the race car.

“Adrian is focused on the design of the race car, the architecture, and the detailed considerations. He’s been in the industry a long time, as have I, and we know our strengths and our weaknesses. I think a strength that we’ve both got is that we can just talk openly to each other.”

Cowell says that his ability to understand the complexities of the F1 hybrid engine – having led Mercedes’ successful High Performance Powertrains division – will help him with the integration as Aston switches to Honda engines for 2026.

He said: “It’s five years ago that I was last poking my nose inside a Formula 1 engine, and so I completely respect that it’s Honda’s responsibility to create the power unit for ’26 onwards for Aston Martin. 

“I’m a big believer in everybody that’s working on the racing car, whether it’s a composite designer, whether it’s for suspension, whether it’s vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics – we all focus on what’s best for the race car, and the best way of coming up with a common language is having a common currency, and that’s lap time.

“That said, what I can also do is listen to what the Honda engineers are talking about, what they’re battling with, and I can explain that to the people here. I can just take the pressure off this area a little bit.

“And likewise, I can do the same with Honda. I can say, ‘look, the integration guys are asking for this because of this’. So hopefully, I can explain both worlds, but we can equate what we’re doing from a performance perspective in the common currency of milliseconds.”

More: Listen to the JA on F1 podcast at Autosport.com