Adrian Newey feels no pressure to succeed after signing the contract with Aston Martin | Formula 1

Adrian Newey has said he feels no pressure following his confirmation as Aston Martin’s technical director, with the team hoping the appointment will put them in a position to challenge for the Formula 1 championship in the near future.

Aston Martin announced on Tuesday that Newey, the most successful Formula One designer of modern times, will join the team next season. Newey has signed a long-term contract estimated to be worth up to £30 million a year and will become a shareholder – another bold statement of intent from Aston Martin’s billionaire Lawrence Stroll.

Newey will be the team’s new managing technical partner. The 65-year-old will start working with the team and its drivers, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso and Stroll’s son Lance, in early March. They have ambitious goals, but Newey is confident in his own abilities, which he has demonstrated with a remarkable track record in Formula 1.

“I no longer feel the need to prove myself to the outside world,” he said. “My motivation is to try to do my job as well as I can. The pressure comes from within. I remember Frank Williams saying he thought I was the most ambitious person in the pit lane. I remember being a bit annoyed about that at the time. But I can’t deny that I am professionally ambitious. I put pressure on myself to do my job as well as I can.”

The appointment is a major coup for Aston, with Newey’s skills considered invaluable in interpreting and exploiting regulations to create extraordinarily competitive cars that often have a significant advantage, particularly at the start of a new set of regulations. He will join them in time to have a significant influence on the design of their new car for the next major rule change in 2026.

Despite the huge investment required to bring Newey into the team, Stroll felt it was more than worth it. “Adrian is a bargain,” he said. “I’ve never been more certain. He’s a shareholder, a partner, the best partner you can have in a business and we intend to stay together for a very long time. So for everything Adrian brings to the partnership, it’s relatively inexpensive.”

Newey has built a formidable reputation in Formula 1 and is one of the most sought-after talents in the paddock. Cars he has played a key role in designing have won 12 Drivers’ Championships and 13 Constructors’ Championships for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. Since first driving for Nigel Mansell and Williams in 1992, he has helped deliver titles for Alain Prost, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Häkkinen and Sebastian Vettel.

Most recently, his design of the new Red Bull proved to be outstanding and left the rest of the field far behind. This allowed Max Verstappen to completely dominate the last two seasons, taking 19 wins in 22 races last year.

The British designer had been with Red Bull since 2006 but announced in late April that he was leaving the team after almost two decades. The decision was made at the Japanese GP. He had been strongly expected to join Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton, a team and driver he said he had always wanted to work with. However, it is understandable that the Scuderia was unwilling to enter a bidding war with Aston Martin, given its confidence in its current design team.

The successful takeover by Stroll, who made no secret of his desire to bring the British designer into his team, has finally proven the seriousness of his ambitions. He believes they have laid the building blocks to be title contenders in the next two to three years. With Newey on board, that goal must now be seen as achievable.

Stroll has funded a major investment worth hundreds of millions of pounds since buying the team in 2018 when it was still called Force India, renamed Aston Martin in 2021 after buying into the carmaker in 2020. He has overseen the construction of a new state-of-the-art factory facility at Silverstone, including a wind tunnel, and secured an exclusive deal with Honda as the works engine partner for 2026.

There has also been a generous spending spree in terms of personnel, with serious talent being poached from other teams, including Technical Director Dan Fallows, who worked under Newey at Red Bull until 2021, Andy Cowell, the former Mercedes engine director who will join in October, and former Ferrari chassis director Enrico Cardile.

The team already has a contract with Alonso until the end of 2026, giving the 43-year-old two-time world champion potentially the best chance of winning a third title, his first since leaving Ferrari in 2015.

Verstappen leads the world championship by 62 points going into this weekend’s Azerbaijan GP but has not won a race in six races. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has stressed that the team’s slump, caused by problems with the car’s balance that they are struggling to solve and which the Dutchman has been heavily critical of, has nothing to do with Newey’s departure and his ending his involvement in the car’s development.