Formula One’s most revered-ever designer Adrian Newey is set to snub Lewis Hamilton to commit the final part of his glittering career to Aston Martin in a £20million-a-year deal.
Mail Sport understands that the 65-year-old boffin – dubbed ‘the man who can see air’ – has turned down Ferrari and a host of other suitors along the paddock to move from Red Bull to the ambitious Silverstone-based Aston, who are hellbent on establishing themselves as the super-team of the future.
Newey’s decision means that there will be no swansong alongside Hamilton, who moves to Ferrari next season. The Scuderia courted Newey hard, with the seven-time world champion even admitting his fellow Englishman was top of his list of dream colleagues.
McLaren, where Newey enjoyed world championship success, also made a play for his services but they will miss out despite the aerodynamicist’s friendship with the Woking-based team’s owner, Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain. So, too, have Williams, where Newey first established his stellar reputation in the Nigel Mansell era.
One senior figure in the sport told Mail Sport four months ago that if the ink wasn’t already dry on Newey’s Ferrari contract it soon would be. It never dried, and a visit in June to Aston Martin’s swanky £200m new factory at the gates of Silverstone helped make up his mind. He is said to have been gobsmacked by its scale and cutting-edge possibilities.
Revered F1 designer Adrian Newey is set to join Aston Martin after leaving Red Bull
Newey has snubbed offers from a host of other teams and will commit to a £20m-a-year deal
The aerodynamicist turned down the chance to work with Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari next year
Newey – who still draws his designs by pencil – remains at Red Bull for now, but he is far less involved there than he was after his manager Eddie Jordan – who like his friends, the Neweys, owns a house in Cape Town – informed dumbfounded team principal Christian Horner in late April that he was about to quit.
Red Bull denied that their £15m-a-year employee’s impending departure after 20 years of resounding success with Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen was connected to the infighting that engulfed the team earlier in the year, when Horner, husband of Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, was accused of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ towards a female colleague – charges of which he was cleared in an internal investigation and a subsequent appeal process.
Red Bull’s party line was that Newey had instead grown uncomfortable with the idea that Horner was taking the lion’s share of the credit for their recent successes, and that the scandal did not play a significant part in the timing or motivation.
Since then, Jordan – the charismatic former boss of his eponymous race-winning team that launched the career of Michael Schumacher – has sought out the best opportunities for his client, who, it is said, considered walking out of the sport altogether to enjoy an affluent retirement with his wife Amanda.
Newey (pictured with Max Verstappen) made up his mind after a visit to Aston Martin’s factory
He will work alongside Fernando Alonso (left) and Lance Stroll once he begins his duties
But Aston Martin’s owner Lawrence Stroll, a Canadian fashion magnate worth $3.9bn this year according to Forbes’s latest estimation, espied an opportunity to add another significant piece to the jigsaw he is putting together in his quest to win the world championship in the next few years.
Stroll has already signed an important deal with Honda to become Aston’s engine suppliers from 2026.
He has also enlisted key personnel – Dan Fallows from Red Bull and Enrico Cardile, who will become chief technical officer from next season, from Ferrari.
Newey is contractually free to announce his resignation from Red Bull from this Friday, September 6, though his official unveiling at Aston Martin is more likely to come next week.
He will work with Stroll’s driver son Lance, 25, and double world champion Fernando Alonso, the oldest man on the grid at 43.
Newey is contractually free to announce his resignation from Red Bull from September 6
One of F1’s most significant figures told Mail Sport: ‘For Adrian it was easy enough in so much as if he went to Ferrari, he would not get credit because they are doing fine as it is, whereas at Aston he will be hailed as a genius if they get into the final qualifying session.’
That, however, is hardly the limit of either the Strolls’ or Newey’s ambitions, not after the latter has designed winning machinery that have won 12 constructors’ and 13 drivers’ titles with seven different racers.
Newey is due to disentangle himself from Red Bull entirely at the end of the year before a period of gardening leave. He is free to take up his new post around the start of the new season.
Aston Martin declined to comment on the situation.