Aston Martin land big win after signing Ferrari F1 legend

Stroll and Leclerc battling at Shanghai — Photo: © IMAGO

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Aston Martin land big win after signing Ferrari F1 legend

Aston Martin have made a statement of intent for 2026

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Wednesday 5 November 2025 08:58

Aston Martin have secured yet another signing from their F1 rivals after they announced the appointment of Ferrari’s Marco Fainello.

The British team welcomed Adrian Newey as their managing technical partner in March, and Ferrari man Enrico Cardile has served as their chief technical officer since the summer.

According to Motorsport.com Italy, Aston Martin have plucked a team member crucial during Ferrari’s title winning years during the Michael Schumacher era, with the engineer who helped build their simulator - Marco Fainello.

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Fainello will take on the role of Aston Martin’s consultant, and with his F1 CV it is easy to see why the team were keen to make the signing, also being recommended by Cardile himself.

The now 61-year-old joined Ferrari in 1995, led vehicle dynamics from 1997 until 2004, and introduced Ferrari’s first simulator. Although, Fainello left Ferrari in 2016 he has been persuaded to return to F1 for the Aston Martin project.

Pieces fall into place at Aston Martin

Following his arrival at Aston Martin, Newey had labelled the team’s simulator as one of their ‘weak tools’.

"I think Aston has gone from a small team as Jordan, and then the pink team at Force India, and then into Racing Point and so forth, where it's always a small but over-performing team," Newey said in May.

"It's grown hugely in a very short space of time into what it is now. And we now really need to settle down and kind of get the organisational structure perhaps a little bit better sorted out, work out how we all work together as effectively as possible and develop the simulation tools, because that's one of the areas which I would say we're quite weak in."

Fainello’s signing for 2026, indicates that Aston Martin are taking improvement on their simulator seriously to build towards their ambition of becoming a title challenging team.

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