Newey shares the key factors that attracted him to Aston Martin amid interest from other F1 teams

Adrian Newey has highlighted Lawrence Stroll’s “passion, commitment and enthusiasm”, alongside Aston Martin’s “mightily impressive” facilities, as the main factors behind him agreeing terms with the team.

Months of speculation over Newey’s F1 future ended on Tuesday morning when it was announced that Lawrence Stroll’s organisation had won the race to secure his services – the legendary designer receiving interest from up and down the grid after news of his impending Red Bull exit.

READ MORE: Adrian Newey to join Aston Martin as Silverstone squad win race to sign F1 design guru

In a special event at Aston Martin’s all-new Silverstone headquarters, Newey joined Stroll to talk about his next chapter – which will officially begin on March 1, 2025 – and what convinced him to put pen to paper.

“Lawrence! That’s easy,” Newey laughed, before opening up on the move. “No, seriously, I felt as if I needed a new challenge. Towards the end of April, I decided that I needed to do something different.

“I spent a lot of time with Mandy, my wife, kind of discussing what’s next… What do we do? Do we go off and sail around the world? Do I do something different? We took a bit of time out.

“Lawrence and I have known each other off and on over the years, and we often bump into each other in the gym, particularly at the Middle East and Far East races.

“As I’ve announced to everybody that I will be departing the old team, I was very flattered to have a lot of approaches from various teams, but really Lawrence’s passion, commitment and enthusiasm was very endearing, it’s very persuasive.

READ MORE: Hunger, ingenuity and modesty – How ‘Einstein of F1’ Newey helped transform Red Bull’s fortunes

“The reality is, if you go back 20 years, what we now call Team Principals were actually the owners of the teams, Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan etcetera. In this modern era, Lawrence is actually unique in being the only properly active team owner.

“It’s a different feeling when you have somebody like Lawrence involved like that, it’s back to the old-school model, and to have the chance to be a shareholder and a partner is something that has never really been, or hasn’t been offered to me before.

“It’s [an opportunity] I’m very much looking forward to, and it became a very natural choice.”

Newey also touched on the state-of-the-art Aston Martin campus, which will soon be complemented by a new wind tunnel and simulator set-up, after paying a visit over the summer.

EXCLUSIVE: Newey on the RB17 hypercar, his ‘amazing ride’ at Red Bull and what’s next

“The building is clearly mightily impressive, it has a great feel to it,” he continued. “It’s a real demonstration of Lawrence’s commitment and vision of where he wants the team to get to.

“I don’t know how much it cost but it’s not going to be cheap! I think the combination of seeing all the facilities, how nice a feel [it has] and how well thought out the building is, perhaps most of all that very visual demonstration of Lawrence…

“If I had to describe Lawrence in one sentence, I think he has total belief, he has a direction and he’s happy to put all his chips on black, and that’s what he’s doing here.”

DISCOVER MORE...

MONDAY MORNING DEBRIEF: How Piastri’s ultimate gamble saw him take and keep the lead in Baku while under immense pressure

‘It’s very disappointing’ – Sainz and Perez give their views on dramatic late-race crash in Baku

Piastri relieved after ‘hanging on for dear life’ to beat Leclerc and claim Baku victory

‘We paid the price’ – Verstappen reflects on detrimental car issues that impacted Baku race

HIGHLIGHTS: Relive the action from Baku as Piastri takes exhilarating victory in dramatic fight for the win