Aston Martin power shuffle: Cowell poised to exit as Newey era takes the wheel
Andy Cowell’s brief second act in Formula 1 looks set to end as quickly as it began. Multiple sources indicate the Aston Martin team principal and CEO is preparing to depart the Silverstone outfit ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, a move that would underline the team’s accelerating reset for the 2026 regulation change.
Aston Martin declined to engage with the speculation, saying only that its focus is on maximising performance in the remaining races and preparing for 2026. But the direction of travel is hard to miss. Since Lawrence Stroll lured Adrian Newey into a senior technical role — with shareholding attached, as reported — the team has been steadily re-cutting its leadership and technical structure around an aero-led philosophy. That’s Newey’s domain. It’s not Cowell’s.
Cowell, the architect of Mercedes’ all-conquering hybrid power units from 2014 to 2021, rejoined F1 late last year at Stroll’s invitation and took on a heavyweight brief: CEO of Aston Martin Performance Technologies and team principal, replacing Mike Krack at the top of the F1 programme while Krack shifted to run trackside operations. In parallel, Aston executed a flurry of headline hires — Newey as managing technical partner, Ferrari’s former chassis chief Enrico Cardile — while parting ways with figures who had defined the team’s early rise, including Dan Fallows. Aerodynamics director Eric Blandin is also understood to be heading for the exit.
In the background, the 2026 project looms. Aston Martin becomes a Honda works team under the new chassis and power unit rules, a pairing that offers a clean-sheet chance to vault into permanent frontrunning. That project needs a single, unambiguous technical direction. According to sources, Cowell and Newey were not fully aligned on design priorities or on how the leadership model should work. Given their backgrounds — power units for Cowell, aerodynamics and packaging for Newey — the friction is no shock. The question was always which philosophy would win out.
You don’t need a wind tunnel to read that airflow. Newey is now in situ, Cardile has his sleeves rolled up, and the senior group is reshaping around them. In that context, Cowell’s exit would feel less like upheaval and more like consolidation.
Who replaces him? The marketplace is stirring. Andreas Seidl’s name has been floated as a target; he’s a proven organiser with the calm authority to run a modern F1 operation. Christian Horner is also available and, per paddock chatter, is chasing a shareholding in any new role — a box Aston could tick if Stroll wanted to reunite Horner with Newey and Honda power. The pair’s relationship is said to be fully mended, but Horner is believed to be prioritising building an all-new team with serious financial backing. That pursuit won’t stop others from making a pitch.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Over the last 18 months Aston Martin has behaved like a team that knows time is short and opportunity is huge: big names in, structures reworked, decision-making centralised. There’s risk in that — churn can cost you in the short term — but if you believe your 2026 car must be designed by a tight, aligned brain trust, you do your pruning now. And if Newey is your managing technical partner and a shareholder, you tend to design the org chart around his lines in the sand.
There are side plots worth watching. The FIA has confirmed its head of aero, Jason Somerville, is on gardening leave ahead of a return to a team role. His destination isn’t clear, and he’s not expected to be a direct replacement for Blandin, but the timing is interesting as teams quietly arm up for 2026.
For Cowell, the likely exit closes a curious chapter. He’s one of the sport’s most respected engineers, credited with the blueprint of the turbo-hybrid era’s benchmark power unit, but Aston’s current trajectory is defined less by engine philosophy and more by aerodynamics, packaging and organisational gravity. That’s Newey territory, through and through.
If Aston confirms the change before Qatar, don’t expect a long public post-mortem. The team has its eyes on a different prize: turning the new Honda alliance and its technical firepower into a 2026 car capable of changing the conversation. Whether that’s a fairytale or a familiar F1 gamble will depend on how smoothly this final round of musical chairs ends — and who’s still standing when the music stops.
