Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey has compared Aston Martin’s current struggles to some of the tough times that he experienced with Red Bull.

There is not much that Newey hasn’t experienced across his time in F1.

Adrian Newey sees Red Bull similarities at Aston Martin

Aston Martin is in the midst of one of the most underwhelming F1 campaigns in the history of the championship. Although not last in the standings, the team made no secret of its desire to be challenging for race wins and championship titles in the new regulations era.

However, the team has rarely even been in the conversation for points.

How much of the blame can be placed on the chassis is unclear, with both the team and power unit supplier Honda accepting that the power unit is the limiting factor.

With constant reliability issues on top of a significant lack of performance, and reports that improvements for 2027 will not be as substantial as is required, Fernando Alonso took to waving at his opponents as they passed him at Interlagos after wet conditions had allowed him to drive beyond the limitations and reach Q3 for the first time this year.

However, when Newey began life with Red Bull, things were hardly plain sailing either, giving the veteran designer something to keep him grounded in the difficult moments.

“I think there are actually a lot of parallels between when I started at Red Bull and when I started at Aston Martin,” said Newey.

“Both teams, through their history, had had quite a lot of turmoil with changes of owners, changes of senior managers, etcetera.

“And it’s then really trying to, as we’ve spoken before, get everybody working together, try to break down silos, improve the culture. And that’s been exactly the same again.”

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Honda has already been given significant dispensation to improve its power unit this season, with a special category created in the ADUO measurements to allow for Honda’s shortcomings.

While a major chassis upgrade saw improved performance and has at least allowed Alonso to show his skills on a wet track, a lack of pure grunt is keeping Aston Martin glued to the lower order.

Asked about the ADUO system and how he could help Honda with packaging the power unit in the chassis, Newey said: “As you can imagine, [we’re] completely in agreement with Ferrari’s comment that, yes, it’s not just about crankshaft horsepower. It’s about the whole package. It’s what makes the car fastest.

“So, with Honda, we are always looking at that and always working on what will create the best package, the fastest package on lap time.”