Aston Martin need Christian Horner and Adrian Newey just told them why

Horner, Newey, Aston Martin, socials — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Analysis

Aston Martin need Christian Horner and Adrian Newey just told them why

Will Aston Martin get the band back together?

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Wednesday 1 July 2026 13:14 Updated: 22:46

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In November 2025, Aston Martin appointed Adrian Newey as their F1 team principal just eight months after he walked through the door. We really should have known something was up even then.

At the time many were puzzled by the decision. Why saddle your best engineering guy with the responsibility of running the team?

Rather than scratching our heads we perhaps should have been worried by the symbolism of this appointment and what was going down at the team's Silverstone base.

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Normally, a guy like Newey is left with his drawing board and a design team underneath him to assist and bring to life his ideas.

Newey being appointed as team boss suggested something deeper, that Aston Martin had no one else fit to run the team.

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Aston Martin's team principal problem

They've already had four team bosses in their mere five-year existence after taking over the Racing Point team. Their previous incumbent Andy Cowell was in the post less than a year.

Still, Aston Martin pressed on with Newey leading the way but it wasn't long before his position was questioned by those outside the team again when Aston Martin were late to pre-season testing and then delivered a dog of a car to compete in the 2026 season. Jonathan Wheatley's shock early Audi exit at the time didn't help these murmurs.

Aston Martin F1 team principals
Team Principal	Years in Role
Otmar Szafnauer	2021
Mike Krack	2022-2024
Andy Cowell	2025
Adrian Newey	2025-present

Newey blamed a slow and unreliable Honda engine that had a strange tendency to shake the car and its drivers to bits. He had a point, but what he didn't divulge, initially, was that the car outside of Honda's influence was barely fit to fight for points.

Furthermore, there were issues at Aston Martin themselves, structural ones. Issues that prevent a team working as efficiently as possible. This might seem minor, but you can have all the talent in the world and yet if there are poor organisational procedures, that talent is not taking on giants like Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

The real problems at Aston Martin

Newey revealed these issues in an honest public interview with Aston Martin.

He said: "We were relying on tools and processes that had been patched and bodged for years – you could trace some of them right back to the very early days of the Jordan team that was based here in Silverstone, long before Aston Martin returned to the grid. At some point, a system that's just patch‑on‑patch stops being fit for purpose. That's where we had got to.

Newey revealed Aston Martin's internal issues stretched back to early 1990s Jordan

"The result was a very frustrating car build. Parts weren't being ordered at the right time – not because people weren't doing their jobs, but because the underlying system was failing them."

Newey added that fixes were already underway to try and resolve their structural problems.

Newey added: "We've taken this difficult spell as an opportunity to overhaul how we work.

"We're making big strides in our in‑house facilities and production capabilities. You won't see all the gains immediately, but they'll be visible on the updated car: many more components are now produced in‑house. The gearbox casing is manufactured here, the floor patterns and floors themselves are made here, and a lot of parts that were previously outsourced have come back in-house.

"That gives us better cost control, but more importantly, much greater flexibility and control over our own destiny.

"Bringing more work in‑house gives us better quality control, better responsiveness and a tighter feedback loop from research to design to manufacture."

Newey's first Aston Martin car has been hit with all sorts of issues

Why waste Newey when you can have Horner?

Newey, touched more on his Aston Martin role as 'working with the team in Silverstone on the engineering, long‑term strategy and overall direction.'

In reality, if you hire Newey you only really want him having responsibility for one of those while allowing him to have a say in the other two. If you hire an expert engineer just let him get on with it.

Now here's the twist because for the second time this year, Aston Martin have been linked with a move to bring in Christian Horner, following similar rumours around the start of the season when Aston Martin's issues came to light.

These reports suggest there is fresh contact between Aston Martin and Horner, but here we just need to focus on what Horner can add to the team.

Newey left Red Bull under Horner in far from ideal circumstances, and a big question if they were to work again in the same building is if could they work on the same page again and recapture the magic that won Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen four straight world championships.

One crucial job Christian Horner did at Red Bull was taking a team that was a complete shambles under Ford, when the team was known as Jaguar, and making them into a slick world beating operation with Newey by his side.

Aston Martin look to have similar problems. If Newey really wants to get the team working to its full potential, it may be in his interest to take a deep breath, accept reality, and welcome back the expertise of Horner.

Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

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F1 Christian Horner Aston Martin Adrian Newey