Aston Martin’s Andy Cowell pins his 2026 F1 hopes on backroom dream team

In Formula 1 the difference between a middling team and one that wins world titles is measured in a few 10ths of a second per lap. But those final 10ths, along with perfect pit stops and good strategy calls, are by far the hardest to find. So how do you unlock that ultra-high performance and is there such a thing as a guarantee of success?

Billionaire Lawrence Stroll, chair of the Aston Martin team and a major shareholder, believes there is and has hired quietly spoken Lancastrian Andy Cowell to unlock ultra-high performance from the other assets he has assembled.

Stroll has invested heavily in a new state-of-the-art campus near Silverstone, secured an exclusive supply of works Honda engines from 2026 onwards and signed up Adrian Newey, considered by many in the sport to be the greatest designer in F1 history, who started work there earlier this year.

But for the team to succeed, Stroll is looking to Cowell as the leader to knit it all together. The 56-year-old joined as chief executive in October and also became team principal in January putting him in charge at the factory and racetrack.

Cowell, a mechanical engineering graduate from Lancaster University, rose through the ranks in F1 as an engine builder after developing a passion for motorsport through his father, who competed in grassroots events, sprints and hill climbs.

Starting out with Cosworth he was headhunted by Mercedes High Performance Powertrains and presided over the hybrid turbo engines that won seven consecutive World Championships between 2014 and 2020 with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

His background on the engine side makes Cowell unusual among his peers, who are mostly either businessmen such as Mercedes’ Toto Wolff or race engineers like McLaren’s Andrea Stella. But he says his ability to speak the technical language of the Honda engineers will be invaluable. He sees his role as being about integrating the Japanese engine maker’s team and Newey, the two potential game changers, as quickly as possible.

“Lawrence [Stroll] has a vision for this team to become one of the great teams,” he says. “Winning races, winning multiple championships; that for me, is the definition of a great team. To achieve that you need the key ingredients. Honda supplying us in a dedicated format, Aramco coming up with a high-performing sustainable fuel, Valvoline the lubricant . . . My role is about linking all of that together [and to] make sure that 1,000 people communicate as though it’s one brain.

“[To succeed in F1] you need a clear organisation that’s as flat as possible. It’s always best if the communication steps are fast and slick . . . I’m more the type who wants to go and see what’s going on, how things are fitting together, how information is flowing.”

Cowell first worked with Newey for one season in 2004 when Cowell supplied Mercedes engines to McLaren, shortly before Newey left to join Red Bull.

“The last few months, we’ve been working together and it’s very enjoyable,” says Cowell. “It’s going well, we can just talk openly to each other. Adrian isn’t interested in people management, business organisation. Adrian is focused on the design of the 2026 race car . . . “Everybody has admiration for his track record. He’s creating on a drawing board. He’s discussing with engineers, typically on a one-on-one basis, to get views and opinions. Everybody’s learning from him, picking up his decades of experience”.

Newey appeared for the first time in Aston Martin colours in May at the Monaco Grand Prix, checking how the team operates at the circuit, how it manages the race weekend, makes strategic decisions, identifying areas for improvement.

“I’ve known Andy for a very long time. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for him and his track record speaks for itself,” says Newey. “Our roles here are somewhat different. Andy’s very much looking at the whole company and how everything fits together. I’m concentrating more on the engineering side. Having said that, there’s overlap. I feed ideas into him and he feeds ideas into me. So there’s a very good synergy.”

After a promising 2023 season, when Aston Martin had a string of podium finishes, last year’s performance was disappointing with the team achieving only a distant fifth-place in the Constructors’ Championship. This year has started poorly with the team lying in eighth.

Stroll is famously demanding and impatient, so the temptation for Cowell to train Newey’s eye on the failings of this year’s car must be strong. But the main objective is to be competitive next season when new regulations come into force, with smaller, lighter chassis powered by new hybrid turbo engines, running on zero-emission fuels.

It is very unusual in F1 for new chassis and engine regulations to come in at the same time. For Aston Martin it could be an opportunity to vault into the big league.

The challenge facing Cowell is to maximise the assets that Stroll has assembled. “We try things. And we understand that, if you are truly working on research and development, 80 per cent of the things you try won’t work,” he says. “One in five will work, yes, but it’s about making sure that the four that don’t work, you learn from the experiments. Let’s chase difficult targets. Let’s do it quickly. Once we’ve done it, how can we chase a target that’s even bigger next time and do it even quicker?”