Can Adrian Newey Save Aston Martin
- Tarasekhar Padhy
- Jan 12
- 4 min read
There is a lot of hope that Aston Martin will be a championship contender in 2026.
Word on the street is that Adrian Newey will make such a rocket ship of a car, that even Lance Stroll could win a Grand Prix in that Formula 1 season!
However, I can’t just jump on that bandwagon yet.
Yeah, Adrian Newey, the exclusive Honda deal, new regulations, and Lawrence Stroll’s bottomless pit of money are perfectly capable of delivering the promises. At the same time, the fundamental design philosophy of the Aston Martin Formula 1 (AMF1) Team seems to be broken.
AMF1 follows the build-a-bear strategy.
They simply gather the constituents of the current dominant car and mix them together.
They did it once in 2020 when they were known as Racing Point, and again in 2023.
The signing of Adrian Newey and getting an exclusive Honda deal follow that pattern.
In this article, let’s understand why that strategy fails at the pinnacle of motorsport through a statistical analysis of AMF1’s attempts to copy the fastest cars on the grid.
I’ve also discussed whether Newey can break that pattern for the Silverstone-based outfit to make them a championship contender.
Plagiarism Fails At the Apex
“You can copy to pass an exam, but never to top.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Let’s begin by analyzing the recent instance of imitating the best car on the grid, the 2023 F1 season.
Fernando Alonso scored six podiums in the first eight races of the 2023 F1 season. That’s because that year’s car, the AMR23, resembled a lot with the RB18, especially aerodynamically, the car that helped Max Verstappen secure his second world championship. [1]
The sidepods, engine cover contours, and significant portions of the bodywork were ‘inspired’ by the previous year’s championship-winning car.
They even attempted the same in 2022, when the AMR22 was investigated by the FIA before the Spanish Grand Prix. [2]
Anyway, the initial performance of the AMR23 soon faded. The engineers struggled to continually develop the car as the season progressed and went backward. You can see it clearly by looking at Alonso’s average position and points for each third of the season:
In the 2024 season, the AMR24 performed similarly to the AMR23 in the last third of the season. My guess is, that they remained where they were, but everyone else improved because it’s hard to upgrade a car that you haven’t designed yourself.
A lot of F1 fans may point to the 2020 season when Racing Point (the beta version of AMF1) performed consistently throughout the season. One might even argue that their performance improved in the later stages of the season, and, from a statistical standpoint, they would be correct.
Here’s Checo’s race finishes plotted in a line graph (DNFs excluded):
While 2020 implies that the build-a-bear method to design the fastest Formula 1 car, it doesn’t give the full picture. Here are the reasons why the RP20’s performance in the 2020 F1 season is misleading:
The season started in July. This meant less time for top teams to gather data and improve their car. RP20, a copy of the dominant Mercedes W10, didn’t simply need to.
There were plenty of new tracks that F1 went to in 2020. The Bahrain Outer Circuit, Portimao, Mugello, and Eifel. RP20 performed because the W10 was one hell of a machine. Others struggled, relatively, because they were still learning about their car.
We raced twice at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone. Maybe Bahrain, if you consider the weather and general tarmac.
Many teams were focused on the 2021 budget cap and were focusing on that season, considering the 2020 season was shorter and it appeared that Mercedes will easily win that once again. [3]
However, in 2021 and 2022, their performance plummeted. Sebastian was 12th in the driver’s standings twice in a row while Sergio was P4 in 2020. (Lance’s data isn’t conclusive.)
Care to guess why?
Because it’s hard to improve upon someone else’s work.
Adrian Newey and The Exclusive Honda Deal
This duo was a critical force in building the inevitable legacy of Max Verstappen.
In Lawrence Stroll’s mind, he thought of bringing both to his side, to improve his chances of mounting a strong campaign for the title. This move resembles the RP20 (the Pink Mercedes) and the AMR23 car design philosophy — plagiarism.
The owner is simply reaching into his bottomless pit of money to make investments left, right, and center. He has not only done it by establishing new factories and testing centers in Silverstone but also by capturing engineers and world-class drivers.
When Fernando retires, he will simply get another F1 champion at the twilight of their career or Carlos Sainz to get his engineering team some great feedback because Lance Stroll ain’t nothing but a disgrace.
So, when F1 fans are losing their minds on the speculation that AMF1 can become a contender for the highest laurels in motorsport, I remain a bit skeptical. Even if the reasons are huge (Newey and Honda), copycats never become champions.
Looking Forward: 2025 Will Give Hints
I am hopeful that Adrian Newey will break the norm at AMF1 and establish some original car design foundations.
Fernando Alonso has lost three world titles by eight points and it would be awesome to see him compete for one more. Maybe he can even win in 2026.
While it is known that Newey will primarily focus on the 2026 car, he will still give insights to improve the 2025 car. Additionally, AMF1 will surely run experiments on various race weekends in the 2025 season to make the most out of the update in regulations for the upcoming season.
If the AMR25 improves through the 2025 F1 season, then we’ll know that things are going in the right direction and Alonso has another chance to lose the world championships by a few points.
It will be wild if he loses four world titles by twelve points. (I like it when things divide evenly.)
Until next time,
Tara
