Adrian Newey’s wandering eye: why Aston Martin’s new maestro keeps staring at the MCL39
Adrian Newey has always worked the grid like a chess grandmaster pacing the room. A glance here, a crouch there, a fingertip trace along a leading edge — and then he wanders off, mind already churning. Now wearing Aston Martin green, the sport’s most decorated designer has been spotted more than once this season lingering over McLaren’s MCL39. He’s not rubbernecking. He’s collecting.
McLaren has given everyone plenty to study. With 12 wins from the first 16 races of 2025 and a yawning 337-point lead in the Constructors’ standings, the MCL39 of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has set the competitive reference. The Woking team could even sew up back-to-back titles as early as next weekend in Baku. If you’re trying to catch up — or, in Aston Martin’s case, build a car for a new era — you start by knowing exactly what the benchmark looks like.
Newey joined Aston Martin in March as managing technical partner, a title that neatly masks the heft of his influence. He’s also a shareholder and, crucially, the one steering the 2026 car — expected to be called AMR26 — towards a big regulatory reset that will bring 50% hybridisation, sustainable fuels, and active aero. It’s the kind of rulebook shake-up he’s historically thrived on.
His gridwalk reconnaissance has raised eyebrows only outside the paddock. Inside, it’s standard operating procedure — and a reminder of why Newey’s been so absurdly successful. Ryan McGarva, a former Mercedes mechanic and pit-crew member, reckons that habit of learning from others is a feature, not a quirk.
“Data is analysed in every area of F1,” he told Champions Speakers in association with PlanetF1.com. “The first thing you do is analyse yourselves and what you can control. But it’s very important to look at the other nine teams on the grid and any lessons that can be learned.
“Adrian Newey is one of the best F1 designers there’s ever been, but at the start of the race you regularly see him on the grid looking at what all the other teams are doing. He realises he can learn from the other nine teams.”
McGarva also makes a broader point: in 2025 the “data gap” is largely closed. Everyone’s drowning in information; the difference is how people interpret it. “Now the teams all have a very similar amount of data,” he added. “The strengths come from how they analyse it, how they prioritise what they look at — and realising when there’s bad data and not reacting to it. It’s the people as much as the data.”
That emphasis on people — and how they think — is already filtering through Aston Martin. Fernando Alonso, in year three of the project, sounds energised by the dynamic. The two-time champion has been quietly building a working language with Newey through the middle phase of the season, and you can hear the reverence when he talks about it.
“You spend more time with him and you keep learning things — how he works and how he approaches challenges,” Alonso said at Zandvoort. “He’s still a person that is very special and I think only a few people will understand him fully. At the moment, we are in a phase of learning from him.
“Every conversation, every idea, everything that he says, we take it very carefully. We listen and we try to understand the approach he’s taking. Thanks to that, I think we are growing as a team.”
What’s interesting is how far ahead Newey’s mind already seems to be. Drivers usually obsess about what their current car is doing into Turn 1 next lap. Newey’s asking what next year’s car should be doing into Turn 1 in clean air versus dirty air with active aero engaged — and what that means for the driver’s rhythm and confidence.
“I think all the questions and ideas he raises, he explains why it’s going to be a good solution for the team, for the car and for the drivers,” Alonso added. “How to approach the corner entry maybe next year is very different than this year’s cars. Top speed is going to be different. Tyres are going to be different. He tries to anticipate what the drivers will face. He’s very educative.”
None of this is a silver bullet for 2025. McLaren’s momentum is real and, short of something dramatic, not going anywhere this season. But Newey isn’t at Aston Martin to nick a podium here or there. His presence is about the next lap of the regulations, the next shape of the competitive order, and how quickly Aston Martin can compress learning into lap time when the lights go out on a fresh rule set.
And that’s why the long looks at the MCL39 matter. You don’t copy a McLaren by eyeballing it on the grid. You do, however, train your brain on the right questions. Why that floor edge there? How are they managing front-to-rear platform with this tyre? What’s the driver asking of the car at the moment the active aero flips state next year? It’s a rolling tutorial, given at racing speed, about the winning car of today to help define the weapon for 2026.
If Aston Martin’s ceiling in the current cycle is capped, the floor for 2026 just rose a few stories. Lawrence Stroll signed a serial winner who still prowls the grid with curiosity — and curiosity has always been Newey’s sharpest tool. McLaren can enjoy the view from the top right now. The man with the wandering eye is plotting how to get there when the rules flip.
