Gary Anderson: What Aston must do to avoid wasting Newey

The cat is about to be let out of the bag and it has been widely reported that Adrian Newey has agreed to join Aston Martin for their next step in Formula 1.

There is no doubt about the qualities he brings, but if this does indeed happen the big questions are: how exactly will he be used and what position will he occupy in the team?

Team owner Lawrence Stroll has not been shy about hiring top-level engineers from other teams and paying big bucks for it. He has also been very creative in coming up with a name for each of the new positions.

But job titles and structure on paper are fairly easy to establish. What really matters is how this technical management, with a high level of hierarchy, fits and works in reality.

The team has changed completely since that day some 30 years ago when Eddie Jordan decided to take his team into Formula 1. Back in 1990 when we started designing the Jordan 191, there were three of us – Andy Green, Mark Smith and myself – doing the design work and probably another 15 people involved in running the three-car Eddie Jordan Racing F3000 team at the same time. Green and I would go out every race weekend to design two of those cars – that’s how small the operation was.

We were working out of one of the premises at Silverstone, which was too small even for that three-car F3000 team, let alone building an F1 prototype, but we managed in what was probably 500 square metres at most. My first job was to convert the mezzanine into a design office.

I mention this because it shows how complicated an F1 team is today in comparison.

Today, Aston Martin has virtually taken over Silverstone. It has three industrial buildings with a total surface area of ​​16,250m2, so I guess being that size means that there are many layers of responsibility required.

In reality, Ferrari and Aston Martin are the only two companies involved in F1 that could offer Adrian something special. His interest goes far beyond being at the forefront of F1, as Aston Martin’s involvement in the sports car market means he can pursue his dream of designing the ultimate supercar.

However, the first priority must be to optimise its F1 structure to make the step from mid-table to a team with championship potential.

It will be interesting and revealing to see how many chief technical directors Aston Martin will actually have.

It is rumoured that Adrian did not go to Ferrari because Fred Vasseur was not prepared to let him put in place the technical structure he wanted. Newey will have no problem with that under Stroll’s management, but once that is in place there is no guarantee of success and that could be when the problems really begin.

As I said before, Stroll has not been shy about hiring top-level engineers and it is not something that can be done overnight with the responsibility of getting everyone working in the same direction. Hiring Adrian, or perhaps giving him a stake in the company, is a positive move given his success in F1, but Newey needs to be in the right position with the right level of responsibility or he will not thrive.

Newey is a thinker, a creative person. If he wants to sit in a dark room thinking about things, then he needs to be given the opportunity to do so. If he is constantly putting out fires and under pressure to come up with quick solutions, then you won’t be able to get the best out of him.

This means that if there are grey areas in the operational structure, you will not be able to develop your full creative potential and there will be room for politics to become an issue.

Newey should be able to provide Aston Martin with the ideas it needs to take a step forward after being stuck in midfield. But what matters is how it works in reality, how all the pieces fit together and whether he is actually given the time to make a difference.

Aston Martin has everything it needs, including the budget. The question now is whether all those ingredients can be put together to deliver the expected results on the track.

Money can’t buy instant success. It all depends on the ingredients and how they are combined.