Racing
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David Coulthard has called Aston Martin’s decision to put Adrian Newey in the team principal role an “own goal,” saying the job was never suited to Newey’s strengths and was “never going to work.”
Speaking on the Up to Speed podcast, Coulthard argued that Newey’s value has always been as a technical leader rather than the public and political figure a Formula 1 team principal must become. Coulthard, who worked with Newey at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, said: “I, having spent most of my career working with Adrian, would never have seen him as a team principal.”
He said Newey is “technically driven, he’s a racer, he is a problem solver from a technical point of view,” but framed that as the reason the appointment made little sense. In Coulthard’s view, the role demands skills in a very different area, especially around “the politics of Formula 1, which is what the team principal has to deal with a lot, and the politics which are sometimes created with the media as well.”
Coulthard said that was “not at all” a natural fit for Newey, particularly “at Adrian’s stage of life in his 60s.” He added that priorities change with age: “You’ll find as you go through the decades, there are certain things that you’re prepared to do that you’re not prepared to do as you get a bit older, because you’ve got less runway ahead than behind.”
The criticism lands in the middle of a wider leadership debate at Aston Martin. Newey became the team’s fourth different team principal in five years after former Mercedes High Performance Powertrains boss Andy Cowell was moved aside into a chief strategy officer role. In March, speculation grew that Newey would not remain in the position, with Jonathan Wheatley linked to the seat before Audi later confirmed Wheatley had left for personal reasons “with immediate effect.”
Lawrence Stroll then issued a rare statement through Aston Martin’s official channels, reaffirming that Newey is a partner in the team, has a shareholding and that Aston Martin will continue with the original plan. For Coulthard, that intervention only underlined the problem the team had created.
“That is a long term play, so I’m curious beyond the statement that we got from Lawrence Stroll that was reaffirming that Adrian is a partner in the team, he’s got a shareholding and they’re going forward together with the original plan,” Coulthard said. He described the whole episode as “a bit of a PR own goal” because it invited the question from “the majority of people” of “does that really work?”
His conclusion was blunt: “Now, it’s kind of like, as we thought, it was never going to work.” For Aston Martin, that leaves the bigger issue unresolved, because the scrutiny is now not just on who leads the team, but on whether the structure built around Newey matches the job Aston Martin needs done.