Adrian Newey £30m at Aston Martin

Decent annual salary!

Can’t see how that can possibly ever provide  a return on investment when combined with the other F1 costs in terms of increased Aston sales…!

It’ll give Stroll Jr a better chance of a win.

F1 teams are viable businesses in their own right now. If Newey can turn AM into a championship contending team, that’s probably worth a billion dollars for the value of the team.

Depends what Laurence Stroll is trying to achieve. I don’t think he needs sales

Newey’s salary will be excluded from the cost cap (three highest paid staff plus drivers are excluded, I’m pretty sure he’ll be in the top three) so no opportunity-cost of not spending the money elsewhere. If the money is available then why not hire him?

Can’t see how that can possibly ever provide  a return on investment when combined with the other F1 costs in terms of increased Aston sales…!

F1 teams are valued in the billions now and not the nearly bankrupt basket-cases they used to be.

Can’t see how that can possibly ever provide  a return on investment when combined with the other F1 costs in terms of increased Aston sales…!

Each place on the constructors championship is worth ~£10million so they’d need to go from 5th to 2nd which doesn’t seem unreasonable given he clearly knows how to build a winning car.  And I imagine sponsorship is heavily weighted towards teams on the podium, can you name a non-title sponsor of Haas or Sauber?

The difference between 5th and 1st in the constructors is worth ~$40m in prize money alone, without any of the marketing benefits.

Decent annual salary!

I think 30M is including bonusses – presumably related to performance of the car / team.

Can’t see how that can possibly ever provide  a return on investment when combined with the other F1 costs in terms of increased Aston sales…!

How much does it cost to get your sponsorship on the side of an F1 car?  How much does the value of that go up with the increased attention not only from actually winning, but even just from people talking about Newey arriving?

He owned the F1 team before he owned Aston Martin.  Its a Billionnaire buying his son the best chance of success isn’t it?  Its no different to someone here buying their promising child cyclist £1000 wheels in the hope they do better.

Another point is that Newey is keen on building the ultimate supercar so that will be a halo project that AM will use to try to build their brand as comparable to Ferrari.

Stroll is a dreadful driver, he needs to take far more responsibility for his numerous mistakes and correct them or he needs to be dropped

Jake Humphrey’s has just released an interview with him on his High Performance podcast. Link below:

Stroll is a dreadful driver

He’s a decent driver, but not a potential world champion. Those cars are very difficult to drive. It’s Stroll’s team, if he wants Junior in the car, that’s his decision.

F1 teams are valued in the billions now and not the nearly bankrupt basket-cases they used to be.

Glad to see RichEnergy got in before the values rocketed!

Interesting to look at the metadata for the pictures on Autosport….

Taken on 6th Jan 2024

How does that kind of salary fit with the cost cap?

My lad’s mate has just finished a placement year with Red Bull and the cost cap was used to justify quite a few changes to previous “perks” and extras, and potential employment after graduation.

First year they’ve not taken the placement students to the Silverstone GP – it was cheaper for them to go to one of the European ones than pay for their own Silverstone weekend!

its not just about the value he can bring to your team. its also the value in keeping him out of other teams.

How does that kind of salary fit with the cost cap?

Senior hires and drivers are outside of the cost cap.

How does that kind of salary fit with the cost cap?

The drivers’ salaries and (I think) the top three highest paid employees are outside the cost cap. This will just come out of Stroll senior’s pocket, not the budget for running the team (unless they have three other employees earning more than Newey).

Senior hires and drivers are outside of the cost cap.

Hadn’t realised that. Seems a bit odd, but that’s F1.

Hadn’t realised that. Seems a bit odd, but that’s F1.

The people negotiating the details of the cost cap were also the top paid employees of the teams. Do you think they were going to sign something that would cut their own salaries?

I think it will help with the long term share price. Given the cyclical nature of F1, I can’t imagine Stroll Snr hanging around once the share price rises.

@sturdylad where do you find that info? Genuine question for my own interest being a bit tech-dumb, not disputing it 🙂

It’s more than ad/sales/constructors, it’s the increase in worth of the AM F1 business.  30m a year is nothing if the team adds £500m to its overall worth.

@jfab if you click on the images on the auto sport website it shows the metadata next to the image.

I’m not sure it can be right but who knows!

Certainly makes a mockery of all the press speculation this year if it’s true!

just suppose Newey sub-contracted an entire aero department himself at a cost of £10m, leaving him £20m would this be a way of circumventing the cost cap?

@sturdylad having worked in/around F1 for a good number of years now it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

It would also go some way towards explaining Red Bulls lack of development compared to others through the season if he’s actually been sidelined for longer than RB have admitted. It would have had quite a knock-on in attracting sponsorship, staff etc. if it had been widely known from pre-season that he was confirmed to be going to a specific team.

would this be a way of circumventing the cost cap?

No, it wouldn’t or they’d all be doing it. I can’t be arsed to read all 53 pages but I’m  sure it’ll be covered 🙂

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/fia_formula_1_financial_regulations_-_issue_19_-_2024-02-13.pdf

edit: actually, it’d probably be covered in the technical regulations. You need to be able to document how all parts were designed, they can’t just suddenly appear.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/fia_2024_formula_1_technical_regulations_-_issue_1_-_2023-04-25.pdf

There are rules and regs for that exact situation as above, and anyone working in that kind of ‘technical’ aspect falls under the cost cap.

Interestingly I believe people like the drivers trainers, PTs, physios etc tend to be contracted to the driver themselves and fall outside of the cost cap (like Lewis’s famous Angela Cullen in years past).

Imagine if those rules hadn’t existed, it would have been bedlam after the cost cap, with people contracting, sub contracting, sub-sub contracting all over the place!

I’ve seen a crazy stat that Newey designed cars have won 19.7% (or something like that) of all F1 races! That’s insane if it is true

Well there have been 1117 races and cars he designed have won 220 of them

He’s been at it since the the late 80s. He’s 27 race wins behind Ferrari, who have been doing it nearly 40 more years.

I love F1, I’ve been watching for years and years and find the whole thing fascinating.

But I can’t help feeling that a talent like his, or Ross Brawn or John Barnard or whoever, is wasted just making cars go a bit faster round a track. What could they achieve at somewhere like NASA or Lockheed Martin? No doubt their own people are very, very good but adding a Newey to the mix won’t do any harm.

But I can’t help feeling that a talent like his, or Ross Brawn or John Barnard or whoever, is wasted just making cars go a bit faster round a track. What could they achieve at somewhere like NASA or Lockheed Martin? No doubt their own people are very, very good but adding a Newey to the mix won’t do any harm.

I listented to his autobiography. What you state could have been true when he started his career but the reason he’s successful today is a brilliant brain and a load of experience with makeing fast cars go a bit faster round a track. if you threw him at a warplane he probably wouldn’t have the first clue about making it better.

What could they achieve at somewhere like NASA or Lockheed Martin?

I doubt they could cope with the bureaucracy.

I doubt they could cope with the bureaucracy.

Most engineers seem to struggle the other way round.  Getting a job in nuclear power for example is really hard as working in nuclear power previously is generally a requirement.  But in the world outside that those form a nuclear background often struggle because they can’t adapt to designing things to an estimate in a hurry then going back to refine it.

OTOH going into a bureaucratic environment is relatively easy as the reality is you just end up working slowly whilst every other department ticks their boxes to deliver you some rely upon data rather than just getting on with it.

Seeing as he is already rich I’ll accept his claim that being a (small) part owner for the first time, and the sheer hell of doing it yet again with another team is a big motivation.  I suspect the sponsorship enquiries are already justifying the move.