FIA president tests Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has taken some time out of his busy schedule to test drive an Adrian Newey Aston Martin project.

Newey joined Aston Martin as their managing technical partner in March 2025, but has not had too much say in their 2025 car thus far, instead focusing his time and energy on their 2026 challenger.

However, the 66-year-old Brit had actually been working with the Silverstone-based racing outfit before this season, taking part in a very special non-F1 project.

Aston Martin and Red Bull Advanced Technologies - with whom Newey was representing at the time - designed the Aston Martin Valkyrie Spider in 2021, a hypercar that included F1-inspired aerodynamics and performance combined with open roof driving.

Now, FIA president Ben Sulayem has revealed his joy at taking the hypercar for a spin, posting a video on his Instagram page showing him driving around.

The caption of the post read: "Taking a moment behind the wheel. Aston Martin Valkyrie Spider excellence, V12 engine. #Valkyrie."

Newey's ever-growing list of achievements

In the final months of Newey's time at Red Bull, the legendary designer moved away from F1 and instead focused on Red Bull's own RB17 hypercar project.

The 66-year-old is widely considered to be the greatest racing car designer in history, having claimed a whopping 25 world championships in F1 across spells with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull.

Now, Newey is hoping to bring championship success to Aston Martin, with the highly ambitious outfit putting their faith in him to turn them into a championship-challenging team in the next few years.

2026 is a huge year for that project, with wholesale regulation changes sweeping into F1, making for a possible mix-up in the current competitive order in the sport.

On top of that, Aston Martin will be powered by Honda power units from next season onwards, after the Japanese car manufacturer ended their highly-successful partnership with Newey's old Red Bull team.

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A post shared by Mohammed Ben Sulayem (@mohammed.ben.sulayem)

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Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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