Adrian Newey believes luring Max Verstappen to Aston Martin is a pipe dream until they can develop a title-winning car.
Newey, widely considered the greatest technical mastermind of his generation, committed his long-term future to Aston Martin in September 2024 after his departure from Red Bull sparked a bidding war for his services – with Ferrari among those interested.
The 66-year-old started work as managing technical partner at the Silverstone-based team in March and has been clear that his aim is to help Aston Martin become a championship-winning team.
Newey is in the paddock in Monaco this weekend for the first time since joining Aston Martin and said drivers of four-time champion Verstappen’s calibre would not consider joining the team until the car is capable of winning.
“Max is clearly a phenomenal talent and he’s a supreme competitor,” Newey said.
“Part of that means that Max likes to break things down to a simple equation if you like and that is, in this particular case, choosing a team that he believes will deliver the fastest car.
“So if we’re to ever attract Max, the first thing we have to do is make a fast car.
“There’s no point in pipe-dreaming about anything else for now.”
Asked how long that process will take, Newey added: “I’ve got absolutely no idea.”
Discussion over Verstappen’s future was rife amid Red Bull’s early-season struggles with their car and motorsport director Helmut Marko said after Bahrain in April the “concern is great” that the Dutchman might leave before his contract expires in 2028.
Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, 43, and Lance Stroll – son of Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll – are the team’s current driver line-up.
“Lance I think has an unfairly bad rap,” Newey added.
“Any driver who gets to Formula One is clearly very good but I think Lance is much better than people give him credit for.
“Fernando is such a good character. He’s been an enemy for many years, along with Lewis (Hamilton).
“Two drivers I’ve always, from the modern era, felt I would enjoy working with were Lewis and Fernando and I couldn’t work with both so at least I got one of them.”
Newey, who has won world championships at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, has been focused on the 2026 car and the sport’s new regulations.
“It’s been pretty much full on since I started in March,” he added.
“My wife says I go into a design trance and I can understand what she means, that when I get into this sort of period of intense concentration I tend to not see left and right.
“All my processing power is going into one area which is trying to work with everyone to design a fast racing car.”
Aston Martin are seventh in the constructors’ standings, trailing the likes of Williams and Haas, underlining the task ahead of Newey in making them title contenders.
But he says he has seen potential in his new team.
“There’s a lot of individually very good people. We just need to try to get them working together perhaps in a slightly better organised way,” Newey said.
“I think that’s simply a result of the roots of the team being Jordan that became Force India, that became Racing Point.
“As such it was always a small but slightly overperforming team, to now in a very short space of time a very big team that in truth has been underperforming this year.”
