Steiner says Newey should never lead Aston Martin

Guenther Steiner says Adrian Newey should “never” have taken Aston Martin’s team principal role, arguing the move pulled one of Formula 1’s great designers away from the job he does best at a time when the team has opened 2026 in deep trouble.

Speaking on the Drive to Wynn podcast, the former Haas boss gave a blunt answer when asked if Newey should have made the extra step into the top management position for 2026. “No,” Steiner said. “And I think if you would ask Adrian here, he would say, ‘I don’t know why I did this or why I agreed to this.’”

Steiner’s criticism centered on the difference between technical leadership and running an F1 team day to day. He said being team principal is “not where his strength is,” adding that Newey is “very good at what he’s doing, which is designing cars.” Steiner then pointed to Aston Martin’s current problems, saying, “Obviously not the Aston Martin at the moment, but he will fix it.”

Newey joined Aston Martin in 2025 after almost two decades at Red Bull as managing technical partner and shareholder. In November 2025, Aston Martin announced he would also take over as team principal for 2026, replacing Andy Cowell, who moved to chief strategy officer.

Steiner said he did not know whether Newey had actively wanted the job, but argued the promotion never made sense. He described it as a move that looked like, “Why the hell that,” before adding that Newey seemed to have taken it on without fully understanding “what the team principal actually is or what it means to be the team principal,” and said “that didn’t last long.”

He framed it as a wider lesson in team management rather than a criticism of Newey’s engineering ability. “It shows that you should always put the people where their strength is, never over-promote them,” Steiner said.

The timing of the criticism is awkward for Aston Martin because it has coincided with a poor start to the new rules cycle. The team began the era with a new Honda engine partnership, but after the first four rounds of 2026 it has zero points and sits 11th in the constructors’ standings, leaving Newey’s role at the center of a sporting and organizational setback.