Adrian Newey confirms health issues in Aston Martin update

Adrian Newey has revealed he had been battling health issues since last season as he plots to get Aston Martin back on track.

The legendary F1 design genius only joined Aston Martin in March 2025, having left Red Bull during the 2024 campaign following 18 years with the team.

Newey was appointed team principal towards the end of the 2025 season, yet after this season's opening event at the Australian Grand Prix in March, he was absent for the next four races before returning for the Monaco Grand Prix at the start of June.

Now Newey has opened up on struggling to balance his work and health during his time at the team.

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Newey admits health issues

"I'm OK now, but it's been a difficult period. As I said earlier, it never rains but it pours," Newey told AstonMartinF1.

"In truth, I was not 100 per cent last year. I had to balance health and work much more carefully.

"The team handled it incredibly well. I kept a very good relationship with the engineers and I don't feel it caused too much of a blip. That's a testament to how adaptable and supportive everyone here is."

Newey's concerns are just another layer to an awful season for Aston Martin, whose pre-season hopes of challenging the best teams in F1 have instead made way for a nightmare campaign.

With an overweight car and a slow and unreliable Honda engine, the team have just one point from eight races thanks to Fernando Alonso in Monaco, and have spent the season battling with Cadillac at the very back of the grid.

At Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, Lance Stroll was forced to retire, while Fernando Alonso was last in 18th, three laps down on Mercedes race winner George Russell.

Aston Martin staff working at night

Newey though insists the team are working extremely hard to reverse their predicament, claiming many staff are staying late at night in a determined attempt to fix the 2026 issues the team face.

Newey added: "Once we all got over the initial shock of where we were, the reaction was actually very positive, and this is what really sticks in my mind. The whole group pulled together around two clear priorities: first, to pull ourselves out of the hole with a major update before the August break; second, to build the foundations properly for the future.

"It's something every single one of us in the team should be proud of – the way we've all pulled together.

"You walk around the AMR Technology Campus at night and the lights are still on. There are a lot of late evenings, a lot of motivation, and a real determination to prove that we can do this. We have the facilities, we have the people, we have huge amounts of talent.

"The task is to make it all gel - and to an extent, take the pressure off ourselves so we can breathe and concentrate on medium‑ and long‑term projects, not just the next race.

"That means not only solving our immediate aero and mechanical issues, but also introducing better systems and processes that underpin how we design and build the car."

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