The three possible outcomes as Cardile faces delayed Aston Martin start

Aston Martin could have equal cause for celebration and dismay this week; Adrian Newey collected his swipe card from reception on Monday morning to start his work on defining the team’s Formula 1 car for 2026.

Perhaps the idea of sharing a water cooler discussion about Antiques Roadshow with the famed drawing-board enthusiast will have put a little bit of pep in the employees’ steps. Even so, the news that Newey had started work at the team’s new Silverstone HQ was tempered slightly by the emerging story that Enrico Cardile – due to come in as chief technical officer – was going to be delayed for a while longer.

“This is a matter between Enrico and Ferrari and their legal representatives in Italy, and the parties continue to be engaged in the process,” a statement from Aston Martin read. “As such we won’t be making any further comment. We will make an announcement in due course.”

The first clues emerged that all was not well with Cardile’s signing when Andy Cowell side-stepped a question during testing about the Italian’s expected arrival date – or rather, two questions. For someone who’s not long been team principal, Cowell had already managed to glimmer with the sheen of F1 team principal Teflon as he deflected some attention away from the question…but not by enough to not be asked it again.

“I guess what we’re looking forward to is having a thousand people working well together,” Cowell said initially. “We’re looking forward to Adrian joining. We’re looking forward to the dozens of new starters that we have every month. I think it was 248 through the 2024 calendar year. So we’re looking forward to having everybody together and working well as a team.”

It was the classic non-answer answer. As it emerged in Italian media, first floated by Corriere dello Sport, Cardile was subject to a tug of war over gardening leave between Aston Martin and Ferrari. It was announced that he would leave the Maranello outfit in July last year, with the expectation that he would take up his new role with Aston Martin in early 2025, but Ferrari kept its claws in its former chassis chief.

Following an apparent legal battle, Ferrari has extended Cardile’s gardening leave period to the end of 17 July, ensuring that he would effectively have been left twiddling his thumbs for a full year. It also means that the incoming CTO will only get involved with Aston Martin’s 2026 car at an advanced stage, which is no doubt the rationale behind the move – any concessions to a rival would be viewed as a weakness.

There are three ways that this can go when Cardile presumably joins the team on 18 July, each with either an effect on Aston Martin as a team, or on Cardile’s own career.

Outcome 1: Cardile’s late arrival offers a fresh perspective on 2026 design direction

While not having Cardile at the start of the development cycle is a big miss for Aston Martin, it’s not like it doesn’t have a surplus of technical leaders offering their inputs into the car that will spearhead its 2026 challenge. Newey, of course, will help to frame that – as will executive director of technical Bob Bell and deputy technical director Eric Blandin. 

The development of 2026 concepts will go like this: whatever the team is putting in the wind tunnel at this stage will not be anything close to what we’ll see on the grid next year. With clean-sheet regulations, engineers will have to follow a process of trying out new concepts, find out what works best as a collective, and refine those ideas until it has a basis it is happy with.

It may be that Cardile comes in, catches up with the process, and starts asking questions of the engineers that they haven’t been asked in months. July is not too late to have an effect and it might be that, if Cardile sees potential in a different concept, it won’t be too late to change it or at least improve it.

Design freezes for the more critical parts will usually happen around November time, if not later, at which point the team will begin to produce parts and build up the car. Any further developments will be diverted into 2026’s mid-season pipeline, which may also influence performance. There’s still plenty of opportunity for Cardile to be involved in the design process and influence it for the better.

Outcome 2: The late arrival of Cardile disrupts harmony

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

One does not wish to cast aspersions on the character of Enrico Cardile. Instead, this is supposed to outline a point about parachuting someone in mid-way through a development process; say, for example, that Newey and co find an angle with the 2026 regulations and wish to exploit it. 

Everything’s going swimmingly, and then Cardile comes in – and has his own ideas about what should be done.

It’s effectively scenario one, but with less acceptance of other peoples’ ideas; perhaps the incumbent design team believe they have the best strategy for development and will not be moved from it. 

And then that leads to clashes – and fallout. Egos and tempers flare, as Cardile’s questions about the design process are not as well received as in the first case.

Effectively, it’s an internecine conflict as a cat is set among the pigeons, and derails the team’s progress as it begins to doubt its 2026 course. 

Outcome 3: The David Sanchez scenario – Cardile gets sidelined

Ferrari loves a gardening leave period, so much so that the greenery in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy must be utterly pristine. The situation is reminiscent of the long lay-off that David Sanchez endured when departing Ferrari for McLaren last year, and that it could result in a similar outcome. 

David Sanchez, Principal Aerodynamicist, Ferrari, receives the constructors trophy for Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The situation was thus at McLaren: Sanchez was hired as technical director of car concept and performance, but only after a nine-month period of leave was enforced.

On arriving at Woking, the Frenchman found that the duties and seniority he had expected to pick up were nothing like those promised the previous year, as these had been assimilated elsewhere. Rather than limp on as-was, Sanchez and McLaren elected to part ways. 

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Cardile finds, upon joining Aston Martin, that his own expected obligations have been delegated to others in the department. And, as the development process unfolds, there’s a risk of being frozen out – even if, per the first outcome, there’s plenty of opportunity to make an impact and add value to the process.

This is a situation that Cowell will have to manage delicately. If the gardening leave period can be expedited slightly, then it helps the process of integrating Cardile into the team. The longer the situation is left, the more difficult it is to involve him in the development of 2026’s machinery. 

The upshot of this is that Cardile could form part of a 2027 taskforce and get the ball rolling that way, but it’s not the ideal situation for an incoming chief technical officer to be embroiled within.