APRIL 18, 2025

Newey will not rescue Aston Martin's 2025 car

The message out of the Aston Martin garage is clear - Adrian Newey is not going to rescue the struggling team's 2025 season.

It has always been clear that the ambitious team is almost fully focused on 2026, with Newey having been at the drawing board for over a month now.

At the same time, however, Aston Martin is clearly surprised at just how uncompetitive the 2025 machine is, perhaps signalling the need for Newey to urgently intervene.

Team boss Andy Cowell said at Jeddah: "100 percent of Adrian's design time is focused on 2026.

He joined in March, there was an adaptation period with the regulations and the concept work we had done in the previous two months, and there were also deadlines to meet with the chassis and transmission, he explained.

The 2026 cars will be testing at the end of January, so to get the car ready, we have to bring forward the deadlines. And everything is new - nothing is inherited from these cars, so there is a lot of work, and Adrian is focused on that.

Fernando Alonso - yet to score even a single point this season so far - said a few days ago that as far as he knows, Newey has no big ideas about how to easily fix the 2025 car.

And now in Saudi Arabia, he backs Cowell's news about Newey's current focus.

I think he's working only on 2026, said the Spaniard. So if he's deciding that, and I think ultimately it is his decision, then with his experience and knowledge I totally support that.

Alonso played down rumours that Max Verstappen could be his teammate next year, but he said the speculation is proof that Aston Martin is regarded as a team of the future.

I sometimes say we are not the team of the present, and that is what I would like to have, because in the future I don't know if I will be behind the wheel, said the two-time champion.

But I do enjoy the process that we are in now and the building of this team of the future But I will do my best to help us achieve the best results as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, La Gazzetta dello Sport is reporting that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund PIF is on the verge of acquiring ownership of billionaire Lawrence Stroll's team.

(GMM)