Adrian Newey shares first impressions of Aston Martin as he looks ahead to new 2026 regulations

“My previous team had one of the worst wind tunnels in F1 and operates out of an unremarkable series of buildings on an industrial estate, but it managed to get everybody working together and developed a great group of people.

“We have many talented people – also a few areas that need strengthening with greater numbers – and we need to get everyone working together better, using these tools and developing our abilities.”

Newey’s focus will be on 2026 when new aerodynamic and power unit regulations will be introduced, with the designer believing it will open the door for innovation that could give a team an early advantage compared with others.

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“My thoughts on the 2026 regulations are similar to what my thoughts were about the big regulation change for 2022: initially thinking the regulations were so prescriptive that there wasn’t much left here [for a designer], but then you start to drill into the detail and realise there’s more flexibility for innovation and different approaches than first meets the eye,” he said.

“We saw that at the start of 2022, with teams taking really quite different directions. Now, of course, four seasons on, they’ve largely converged, but initially that wasn’t the case. Variation between teams is great. It’s all a bit boring if the cars look identical and the only way you can tell them apart is the livery.

“I think there’s a high probability that in 2026 we’ll see something similar to 2022. There’s enough flexibility in the regulations, and I’m sure people will come up with different solutions. Some of those will be dropped over the first two or three years as teams start to converge.”