F1 2026: Adrian Newey's demands cause 'culture shock' at Aston Martin

Newey and Stroll at Aston Martin — Photo: © IMAGO

Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey's demands are an F1 'culture shock' at Aston Martin

Adrian Newey joined the team last year

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Saturday 31 January 2026 20:26

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Adrian Newey's demands at Aston Martin are said to have caused a 'culture shock' at the F1 team.

The design legend joined Aston Martin last March as their managing technical partner, and he instantly busied himself on designing the AMR26, his first car of the brand new regulations.

Following a managerial shakeup, Newey was also announced as team principal and took over from Andy Cowell at the end of 2025.

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Cowell himself has praised Newey since his arrival at Aston Martin, and claimed he 'inspires the engineers' back at the factory, describing their recent hire as an 'amazing individual'.

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Newey's Aston Martin impact

Speaking on Sky Sports F1’s shakedown show earlier this week, Craig Slater discussed Newey's impact at Aston Martin, and said: “A couple of days ago someone at the factory said to me that it’s been a culture shock working with Newey, the demands and the different way of doing things.

“But they are adjusting, he’ll make them adjust and it’s a long season isn’t it. It’s a rules set that will extend so they might be one of the teams that improves.”

Newey's first Aston Martin made its debut on Thursday at the Barcelona shakedown, with the design attracting attention, particularly the car's anatine nose which differed in width to their rivals' designs.

While Lance Stroll only delivered four laps in the AMR26 on Thursday, Fernando Alonso enjoyed more mileage with 61 laps, bringing the team's reported total laps to 65.

According to the shakedown's unofficial timings, at the end of the week Alonso set a best time of 1:20.795 and Stroll a 1:46.404. It is worth noting that Stroll's four laps at the end of the day on Thursday were exploratory and were initial installation runs.

Both drivers will have instead been focused on checking the systems were working and gaining mileage, compared to rivals Mercedes and Ferrari who accumulated extensive laps over their three days and reportedly even had time to simulate qualifying runs.