How did Stroll convince Newey with his "endearing enthusiasm"?
Aston Martin announced after the Italian Grand Prix that Adrian Newey will join the Silverstone-based outfit as a Managing Technical Partner. The British engineer has now revealed how Lance Stroll's enthusiasm has convinced him.
Newey announced his departure from Red Bull on the 1st of May. After the announcement, he had been linked to multiple teams, including Aston Martin, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Alpine and Mercedes as well.
However, the British engineer finally elected to join Aston Martin, and he will begin working at the team's Silverstone HQ from 1 March 2025, taking up a new role as Managing Technical Partner.
Opening up on the decision-making process, Newey, who has produced 12 constructor- and 13 driver-title winning cars, says that Aston Martin's CEO Lance Stroll's enthusiasm has been a key factor to his decision.
“Towards the end of April, I decided that I needed to do something different,” the 65-year-old conceded. “I spent a lot of time with Mandy, my wife, kind of discussing what’s next… What do we do? Do we go off and sail around the world? Do I do something different?
“We took a bit of time out. I felt that I’ve been lucky enough to have achieved what I aspired to from the age of 10 or 12, which was simply to be a designer – I didn’t even know the word engineer – in motor racing.
“I can honestly say, everything else has been a bonus, having sort of achieved that straight out of uni. I never, of course, expected anything like what I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with. But you have to be honest with yourself and keep yourself fresh, so I felt I needed a new challenge."
“Lawrence [Stroll] and I have known each other off and on over the years, we often bump into each other in the gym, particularly at the Middle East and Far East races.
“As I’ve announced to everybody that I will be departing the old team, I was very flattered to have a lot of approaches from various teams, but really Lawrence’s passion, commitment and enthusiasm was very endearing, it’s very persuasive.
“The reality is, if you go back 20 years, what we now call Team Principals were actually the owners of the teams, Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan etcetera. In this modern era, Lawrence is actually unique in being the only properly active team owner.
“It’s a different feeling when you have somebody like Lawrence involved like that, it’s back to the old-school model. And to have the chance to be a shareholder and a partner is something that has never really been, or hasn’t been offered to me before. It’s [an opportunity] I’m very much looking forward to. It became a very natural choice.”
