Today, I was surprised by the announcement from the Aston Martin F1 team that Adrian Newey will be the team principal starting in the 2026 season. Even though this could be exciting, especially for Fernando Alonso’s fans like me, I am not sure it is a good idea. However, I want to see Fernando winning again, so let’s try to be optimistic.
What is the situation of Aston Martin today?
Nowadays, the situation of the team is not good; currently, they are in 8th position out of 10 teams which take part in the constructor championship; however, it is likely that they will lose this place in favour of Sauber, as it seems that their performance is better in the last races. There will be no more car upgrades, as we are in the final part of the season, and it seems that the atmosphere inside the team is not good. The 2 times World Champion Fernando Alonso is leading the team with 40 points, and his teammate is Lance Stroll, a Canadian who is the son of the team owner. He is not a bad driver, but in my opinion, he is the second driver. However, their performance is below their expectations, especially if you take into consideration their driver lineup and their budget.
Who is Adrian Newey and why the expectations are so high?
Adrian Newey is a legendary engineer and aerodynamist, the cars that he designed have won multiple times since the 90’s. He has been in several makers, including Williams, McLaren and Redbull. His designs have won 12 constructor titles and 14 driver titles. For example, Mika Hakkinen, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen are some of the drivers who have won several championships with his designs. Aston Martin is a team with a high budget and expectations, so as soon as they saw the chance of hiring him, they went for it.
Why the situation can be changed in 2026?
Next year, there is a huge regulation change, so it is like starting from zero for all teams. No one knows where his team is, so we will have to wait until the first race of 2026 in Melbourne to see where every team is. Therefore, most of the teams stopped developing this year’s car and are focusing on next season, 2026. This is a window that has been open for all teams to get huge improvements in performance, but also a risk for leading teams (McLaren, Red Bull, for example) to lose their position.
Which is my opinion about this change?
Well, I think that this is a bit late to do this kind of change, we are almost in December 2025 and in my opinion, it is a bit late for doing huge changes, and it seems to show that there are problems in the team. Actually, if you look at last weekend’s performance, you can see that there are a lot of problems in the team, there are too many race strategy mistakes, and this is a management problem. If they do not fix the problems, they could become the Toyota of this decade, as in the early 2000s, they came to Formula 1 intending to win, but they completely failed on that; even though they had a huge budget back then, maybe the drivers were not good enough.
However, in this case, with Fernando Alonso on the team, the drivers are not the problem. In my opinion, there is a problem with the car, which is just too slow. At this point, someone experimented, and with the knowledge and the talent of Adrian Newey, could help a lot. But being a team principal is much more than that; a good boss should manage the staff, make operational and economic decisions. Anyway, I have hopes for this team and the possible final championship for a legend like Fernando Alonso.
Source. Autosport.com
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