Adrian Newey, the most celebrated designer of modern Formula 1, is ready for his first race weekend with Aston Martin Aramco at the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix. After two months of intense work at the team’s new headquarters in Silverstone, the British genius will make his first appearance in the paddock notebook in hand—an object that has now become as iconic as his championship-winning cars.
The notebook of ideas: sketches, insights, and pure creativity
Newey is known for his hands-on approach to design. While the world of automotive engineering is dominated by CAD software and parametric modeling, he continues to prefer paper, pencil, and scattered A4 sheets stored in his legendary notebook.
“My notebook doesn’t hold much, it’s just a container for loose sheets where I jot down ideas and sketches,” he said in his first official interview with Aston Martin. “It’s a way to immediately capture every thought. Most of these drawings are incomprehensible to anyone else. Sometimes even to me!”
For Newey, the creative process is instantaneous: an idea must be captured the moment it’s born. It’s no coincidence that he’s often seen trackside during race weekends, sketching out concepts that later turn into real solutions. “If I have a drawing with 100 lines, I probably drew 200 and erased half to get to that point,” he explained.
Adrian Newey’s first with Aston Martin in Monaco: trackside to listen to Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll
Despite his central role in developing the 2026 car, Adrian Newey has chosen Monaco as the ideal place to begin closely observing his new drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Dialogue with drivers, in fact, is an essential part of his design method:
“Drivers are fundamental. They translate their sensations into feedback that drives development. You have to get into their heads, because sometimes they adjust their driving style to compensate for the car’s limitations, and they don’t even realize it.”
A creative mind in a hyper-digital world
Adrian Newey remains a fascinating outlier in an increasingly digitalized paddock. His way of viewing the car as a unified, organic whole—a philosophy matured over decades of hand-drawing every component—is what sets him apart. It’s an approach that has led to dominant cars in five different decades, from Williams to Red Bull, via McLaren.
With his first official presence at a GP with Aston Martin, Formula 1 will once again see Newey in the paddock, armed with his notebook, ready to capture new ideas from the pit walls of Monte Carlo.
“I’m planning to be in Monaco… of course with my notebook!” concluded Adrian Newey.
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