Christian Horner’s return to the paddock lands as Adrian Newey lays bare how much work still sits inside Aston Martin. Newey said the team had been running on patched and bodged systems for years, and that the repair job is already under way.
The Aston Martin F1 team principal said the problem was not isolated to one department. Parts were not being ordered at the right time because the underlying system was failing, and the response has been to overhaul how the team works from build to production.
Adrian Newey at Silverstone
“We were relying on tools and processes that had been patched and bodged for years – you could trace some of them right back to the very early days of the Jordan team that was based here in Silverstone, long before Aston Martin returned to the grid. At some point, a system that's just patch‑on‑patch stops being fit for purpose. That's where we had got to.”
That is the clearest explanation yet for why the team’s internal setup had become a drag. Newey said Aston Martin had taken the difficult spell as an opportunity to overhaul how it works, with more components now being produced in-house.
Aston Martin and in-house parts
He said the gearbox casing is manufactured here, while the floor patterns and floors themselves are made here. A lot of parts that were previously outsourced have come back in-house, giving the team better cost control and greater flexibility.
“We're making big strides in our in‑house facilities and production capabilities. You won't see all the gains immediately, but they'll be visible on the updated car: many more components are now produced in‑house. The gearbox casing is manufactured here, the floor patterns and floors themselves are made here, and a lot of parts that were previously outsourced have come back in-house.”
November 2025 changes
Aston Martin appointed Newey as their F1 team principal in November 2025, eight months after he had walked through the door. The move was unusual because he is mainly known as an engineering figure, and it came after a period in which Aston Martin had four team bosses in their five-year existence following the takeover of Racing Point.
Andy Cowell had held the previous post for less than a year, while Jonathan Wheatley made a shock early exit to Audi at the time. That backdrop helps explain why the team’s management shake-up has been paired with a wider rebuild of the way the car is designed, ordered and assembled.
Newey said the gains will not all show at once, but the updated car is where the first signs should appear. For Aston Martin, the next step is less about another title on the org chart and more about whether a cleaner production system can stop the delays that left it late to pre-season testing and left the 2026 season car described as a dog of a car.
