Ferrari gives up on Adrian Newey, Aston Martin will make the announcement by Baku
The Scuderia has finally decided to withdraw from the race to sign the British engineer following the offer made by Aston Martin. His officialization within the British team is now only a matter of time.
The soap opera of this 2024 Formula 1 season is about to end as Aston Martin seems to be close to finalizing the signing of Adrian Newey, the most coveted engineer on the grid.
Since officially announcing his departure from Red Bull after 18 years of loyal service, the Briton has constantly seen his future subject to numerous speculations. Perceived as one of the key figures behind Red Bull’s success, he has been courted by various teams, particularly Ferrari and Aston Martin.
A withdrawal from the Scuderia in the face of an XXL offer
If several sources tended to believe that the revered designer would lean towards the prancing horse, Aston Martin made a real gamble by putting on the table an offer of 76 million pounds (about 90 million euros) over three years, not counting bonuses, according to the English media Autosport.
While Scuderia’s director, Frédéric Vasseur, had secured the budget to sign Newey, this offer changed the game, as the reds did not want to outbid, for fear of entering into a financial war with the British team.
Ferrari therefore prefers to focus on the arrival of Lewis Hamilton in 2025, but also on improving its own internal structure.
Frédéric Vasseur should thus focus on a new organization that will soon welcome Loïc Serra, a former member of the Mercedes team, to take over the position of technical director left vacant by Enrico Cardile.
Can Adrian Newey be the architect of victory at Aston Martin?
The ambitions of the team owner, Lawrence Stroll, have always been clear: to make Aston Martin a winning team in F1. With ongoing growth, new infrastructures, and continuous recruitment, the British team has continued to evolve, at least on paper.
They have accumulated successes in 2023, often finishing on the podium, but they have since taken a step back, a finding lamented by Fernando Alonso. As a team, we must accept that we are not in the battle with the top four teams. They are the best teams for a reason, because they are far ahead of us. But sometimes, we are also behind Williams, Haas, and RB F1. I think in this case, we need to raise our level. We must improve.
The latter insists that the possible signing of Adrian Newey will not solve all the problems and that we must continue working to turn things around in 2025. « I think it’s not the work of one person to fix things. It’s more about what we have now, what we produce, to understand what is going in the right direction or the wrong direction, in order to better prepare for 2025 without giving up on it by shifting all resources to 2026. »
Adrian Newey’s signature would undoubtedly be a plus for Aston Martin, but be careful not to rely on just one man, lest you find yourself trapped at the back of the grid.
