As CEO and Headmaster of the team, Andy Cowell is leading the Aston Martin quest to become the championship-winning Formula One Force in frontrunning.
Aston Martin has the bold ambition to become the Formula One World Championship in the coming years, but now ranks ninth in the Constructors Championship and appears to be stuck in the incredibly competitive midfield pack.
Billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll has committed a huge amount of resources to the project and has built a new factory and a state-of-the-art wind tunnel at the team’s Silverstone base, but Aston Martin has been pleased to deceive in recent years.
After enjoying the flight start through 2023, Aston Martin emerged from the winter as Red Bull’s nearest challenger and regularly finished on the podium, the team bumped into by developments throughout the season, slipping down the pecking orders for F1.
However, getting the service of design legendary Adrian Newy from Red Bull and securing a work engine deal with Honda is considered a major coup as Aston Martin seeks to take advantage of the regulation shake-up coming to Formula 1 in 2026.
Seven months after that role, he also expanded as Cowell, the leading figure behind all Mercedes’ Conquering V6 Hybrid Power Units. I was sitting only on Crash.Net on Monaco Grand Prix for the latest updates on playing with Aston Martin.
Question: Is it important to prove critics wrong?
“I don’t think there’s that much about how you respond to critics. Basically, if you have some resources and you can use that resource, whether in your aerocap or in other business or other business, then whenever you introduce something new, it works when you reach the track, that’s a very positive thing for your organization and you’re wasting no energy.
“By putting together the plan, if you can plan for success, you can confidently move from one specification to the next without completely double it. So energy within your business is spent more productively.
Was it morale boosting for teams to see the new updates working?
“It’s exactly the mood of the business last Monday (after the Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna) when we can say, “We’ve done an update and the cars are getting faster,” 100% of people who saw the data on Friday night agreed that the cars are getting faster. It didn’t get any points.
Alonso scored his first points of 2025 for Barcelona
Has your approach to development changed during the season?
“I think it’s a case where you consider what you want to do, achieve it and be released when you’re sure it works. It’s helped by having a new wind tunnel, and it helps by having a healthy competitiveness, but there’s no panic.
“I think last year we were in such a hurry that our standards were compromised. The harsh reality of Formula 1 is that when you go and compete, a bit of squatting and vulnerability bites you. I think that’s what happened last year.”
How integrated is the new wind tunnel and the new infrastructure?
“The new wind tunnel was not used to develop the (Imola) update, but was used for mapping and final checking. So the data now supports Imola setup decisions. Just move to hardware setup, run on track, and make a better plan.”
McLaren goes from the back of the grid to the front and is now the benchmark for F1. Are you inspired by them?
“I think you know that success in Formula 1 is not from a silver bullet, but from hard work in many areas. And in each of those areas you need to know exactly what makes it faster where you have the resources you have.
“That’s the approach we want to take. We know that silver bullets aren’t just one. We have areas where we can improve, and we make those incremental steps and make sure we take them thoroughly onto the track.
How much of an impact have you felt since Adrian Newey arrived, and have you ever changed?
“I think he offers two things. He offers experience designing an entire car. He doesn’t have many people in the industry where he spent so much time laying out the architecture of the entire car with new regulations. He has that experience. He is very competitive and obsessed with things too. The solution.
How do you make the most of Adrian Newry?
“Listen, hear little snippets of insights and wise, experienced people in everything in life. How to grab them, understand the depths around them, and get 300 engineers to understand and follow.
Newy made his first appearance at Aston Martin in Monaco
How did you discover that you were seen rather than the person behind the scenes?
“The biggest chunk of it is the same as before. Was it the way to lead an engineering company? It’s a group of people to make great cars. It was a power unit and now before it became a race car.
“There’s a theory. You’ll need to experiment and marry accurate engineering and fast, high quality operations, so that’s exactly the same on that side.
“I think the difference is the time spent talking about interviews and what we’re doing. The story is the same. In this job, there are requirements to tell the story. There are also relationships between Fernando and Lance, but I think it’s a very clear requirement for them.
How do you build a team that can not only succeed, but also maintain it for years?
“I think we’re figuring out the efficiency of our organization, how to engineer our engineering, and we’re setting up a place where we can be innovative and innovatively developed for 365 days a year. We don’t waste our energy and don’t run our machines beautifully.
“All successful teams have found a way to do that, but keeping it is often a challenge. Some people want to climb Everest only once, others win the multiple championships needed to set the environment, atmosphere and enthusiasm to climb Everest each year.”
Is that what you’re trying to bring from your time at Mercedes?
“Yeah, absolutely. The team has a big strength. That’s where the department is not dependent on individuals, so when the team goes on a race weekend, development continues.”
Is Aston Martin adopting a “culture of condemnation”?
“If you’re really pioneering and trying to innovate things in the factory, a world-class hit rate is 20% success rate. Four out of five don’t give you yes.
“But that’s to ensure that you’ll have four out of five times you learn from it. So, all conclusions offer some positive learning, encourage people to be ambitious, and knock on hurdles to achieve their first dreams.”
Cowell won multiple world championships with Mercedes
How do you create a victory mindset on a team that is not used to winning?
“I think it’s encouraging all departments to have that as a purpose, saying, ‘That’s the mission and where we want to get there.’ Don’t think about steps 1 and 2. Let’s go straight to step 2.
“Ambition for perfection, but understanding that it is ambitious and not something you actually achieve – encourages it across the business.
“Is it the communications department? Luke (skipper, Chief Communications Officer at Aston Martin) sent me an email from all the races saying things I could do better from a communications perspective.
And how does that challenge compare to your time at Mercedes?
“Mercedes road cars had the viewpoint of “the best or nothing.” I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy coming to the race and closing the podium at all. If I could do that, I would enjoy it more.
“But, like Niki Lauda said, I celebrate for a while, but then I sort and sort out all the issues you have.
How confident are Aston Martin’s confidence that he can achieve these ambitions?
“I think Lawrence has an incredible vision and we are all trying to offer it, and we will continually look for areas where every department of the car will improve.
“Develop faster than your opponent and you catch it. If you do it for long enough, you overtake them and try even more when you arrive before.
“But I think everyone is following it and everyone is enthusiastic about doing it because we don’t know if we achieve it or if we do that, or when we do, what our opponents are doing.
