Newey, Stroll relationship already tense – Doornbos

Apr.23 (GMM) Tension may already be creeping into Adrian Newey’s new professional collaboration with Aston Martin.

On track, the performance of the team’s 2025 car is so dire that respected Spanish journalist Carlos Miguel thinks a radical idea should be considered.

“I’m starting to think that resurrecting the 2024 car might be the best solution,” he wrote in Marca sports newspaper.

Leading technical figures rushed from Saudi Arabia back to the team’s plush new ‘campus’ at Silverstone for what is being dubbed an emergency meeting.

It is believed Newey was not even present.

“He doesn’t go to meetings, he doesn’t answer emails, he’s just preparing a fast car,” team boss Andy Cowell had said at Jeddah. “And we all support that process.”

Fernando Alonso said something similar – that it is Newey’s “decision” whether he intervenes with the 2025 car of remains focused entirely on the 2026 project.

“I feel sorry for Fernando,” team ambassador and Alonso’s long-time friend and colleague Pedro de la Rosa told DAZN, “but right now we can’t give him anything better.

“I’m suffering too, especially as I have no influence on the car’s performance. I’m not a test driver anymore. I can’t intervene, and it’s painful.

“Let no one think we’re taking it as a joke. I haven’t been able to sleep for several days because I don’t like seeing where we are,” the Spaniard added.

It is believed Newey, who arrived at the team from Red Bull ‘gardening leave’ in early March, is refusing to divert his focus from the 2026 car to fix the woefully-underperforming 2025 single seater.

Former Red Bull driver Robert Doornbos was at Jeddah, and he said the atmosphere around Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll is palpably tense.

“Lawrence Stroll has a huge aura around him, but it’s not so nice to be around him at the moment,” he told Ziggo Sport.

“The story is going around now that he’s furious that Adrian Newey doesn’t want to get involved with the 2025 car,” Doornbos added.

Not just that, despite huge investments made by Stroll, he may currently be under pressure to sell the team to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

“There are talks going on about that,” Doornbos insisted, explaining that Aston Martin’s woeful pace may be driving down the value. “Newey is saying ‘I’m only working on 2026’, while Stroll is thinking ‘I already pay you 33 million a year!

“I’m noticing that there is a lot of friction there.”

Doornbos even thinks Newey will not be minding Aston Martin’s performance crisis at all, because there will be no carry-over of components or design philosophy from 2025 to 2026.

“There is also a bit of strategy in it,” the Dutchman continued. “Newey won’t mind if Aston Martin finishes second-to-last in the constructors, because then he will get a lot more time in the wind tunnel.”