Are Aston Martin the 'Galacticos' of F1 with the arrival of Adrian Newey?

It is a busy Thursday morning for Mike Krack in Azerbaijan. The Aston Martin team principal addressed the written press and then the TV crews. Logically, there is only one topic: the arrival of Adrian Newey. On the Tuesday before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Aston Martin confirmed the technical managing partner's arrival with a grand presentation. The drivers joined for that press conference at Silverstone and Krack had his say on Newey in Baku.

The full interview with Mike Krack, which will be available on GPblog.com, is mainly about his role within Aston Martin, but there was no escaping Adrian Newey as a topic in this interview either. Newey is a frontrunner to lead the technical team to greater success. Newey has to give direction to the already existing technical team and ensure that they are going in the right direction, something that disappeared after a good start in 2023.

Someone like Newey can also be a turning point for an organisation. For example, Alexander Albon stated about the arrival of James Vowles that the team really started to believe in success. Not because Vowles said or did many things differently from his predecessor Jost Capito, but more because of Vowles' record. After all, he had already experienced that success at Mercedes. Could Newey play a similar role for Mike Krack's team?

Why Newey's arrival is important for Aston Martin

"The most important thing is just by the fact that he joins and that he sees there is potential. Adrian Newey will not go to a team where he thinks it's not possible to do something. But just the fact that he does this, should give us this confidence that we have stuff in place, that we have good people. It is this transition from being an underdog, to being under pressure that performance is expected from you"

"You need a certain level of confidence that what I'm doing is the right thing without becoming arrogant and I think you need always to self-question what you're doing and but you need to take this confidence that you are not looking all the time [wondering] am I doing the right thing, am I not? I'm confident that what I'm doing is the best I can do. Adrian Newey joining shows that we have the environment to do that. I think from that point of view it's really much, much more than just the signing of the name that will happen in this team."

Yet attracting 'another big name' also raises questions. While Newey is the biggest name announced by the team, he is not the first one. Beforehand, Dan Fallows (technical director) of Red Bull Racing, Eric Blandin (deputy technical director) of Mercedes and Enrico Cardile (chief technical officer) of Ferrari were brought in. Not men with Newey's background, but men with high reputation.

So many 'big names' in the technical field, raises the question of whether this will cause problems. Aren't there too many captains on one ship? Real Madrid managed to dominate football with the 'Galacticos' using this approach, but there are also plenty of examples that bringing in big names is not necessarily a formula for succes. Mike Krack also knows that.

The Galatico's as an example for Aston Martin

"I'm happy that you cited Real Madrid because they won the Champions League how many times in the last couple of years? (6 out of the last 11) but you see also structures like football is a good example where you bring in big names, superstars but you say also there is other clubs where they didn't work by hiring the big names and maybe expected too much straight away."

"We have a lot of big names but we must not forget we also have a lot of very strong people where the names are maybe not so famous and they are maybe even more important because this is what the whole structure relies on. We rely on all these young engineers that are coming with ideas. Maybe the big names are saying left or right, not like that, but someone has to bring this. We cannot just say we have these three big names. They have to give us ideas. They have to create an environment."

"I think it's important that in the situation that we have, we have a clear mission from Lawrence. Pride has no place for this. We are all team members. All of us are team members and we have to play our part in making this successful and pride has no place for that. It's important that we are collaborating as much as we can, be open, be flexible and open to change."

Adrian Newey will start at Aston Martin as technical managing partner in March 2025. Enrico Cardile will also not start at Aston Martin until 2025. So until then, Fallows and Blandin still have the reins to steer Aston Martin in the right direction.

The full interview with Mike Krack will soon appear on GPblog.com. So keep an eye on the website!

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