Every Aston Martin F1 boss under Lawrence Stroll

But the arrival of major figures such as Martin Whitmarsh, coupled with the shift towards a more top-heavy management structure, increasingly marginalised Szafnauer’s influence and changed the environment under which he had thrived in previous years.

By early 2022, it became apparent that Aston Martin was moving in a direction that left little space for Szafnauer’s style of leadership, and he eventually parted company in January.

His departure for Alpine was framed amicably, but it was clear that the Aston Martin that Stroll was building no longer resembled the team Szafnauer had spent so long shaping.

Mike Krack
2022-2025

After Szafnauer’s exit, Stroll put Krack in charge of the team to shape its expansion and soaring expectations.

He arrived with a reputation for calmness and engineering clarity, having spent years at BMW overseeing major programmes across Formula 1, Formula E and GT racing.

Krack walked into a team undergoing an identity shift at incredible speed, a change that included the arrival of Fernando Alonso for 2023.

Under his leadership and with Alonso at the wheel, Aston Martin produced the standout surprise of the 2023 season, leaping from midfield obscurity to podium contention.

He forged a notably effective working relationship with Alonso, who went on to score eight podiums before Aston’s challenge faded towards the end of the season.

The team’s drop in form in 2023 and the struggles of the 2024-25 period placed increasing strain on Krack, whose understated leadership style contrasted with the more aggressive, high-profile direction Stroll wanted to take.

The recruitment of heavyweight figures such as Andy Cowell, and later the pursuit of Adrian Newey, marked a shift towards a more star-powered structure.

Ultimately, Cowell was named team principal at the start of 2025, with Krack moved to a chief trackside officer role.

Andy Cowell
2025

Andy Cowell was hired to replace Aston Martin’s group CEO Martin Whitmarsh in July 2024. Having headed development of Mercedes’ dominant hybrid Formula 1 engine, he was tasked with using his leadership skills to build a world championship-winning team, as well as ensuring success of the works partnership with Honda, which will power the team’s cars from 2026.

In January 2025, Cowell announced organisational changes within the team, which saw him take the team principal role from Mike Krack after a season that had seen the team‘s championship points total slide from 280 in 2023, when it secured eight podium finishes to 94 points in 2024 — although it finished fifth in both years.

Cowell’s reign has not reversed that trend. The team sits eighth in the 2025 standings, with just 72 points, and a disgruntled pair of drivers.

Fernando Alonso has been critical of the team’s operations, not least in the lack of improvements to a car that began the season towards the back of the midfield. “I don’t think that it was a great thing to bring upgrades that didn’t deliver what we were expecting,” he said in August. “This is Formula 1, not an academy to test things. Here you have to deliver.”

At the end of October, Lawrence Stroll, in an interview published on Aston Martin’s website, spoke of his determination to succeed, and the painful process of doing so.

“I’m relentless. I don’t give up until the mission is completed. In this case, the mission is being world champions,” he said. “This is the most passionate I’ve been, the most heartfelt, which drives me more, excites me more, frustrates me more. When it disappoints, it hurts more, and in this business, there’s a lot of disappointment. There’s a lot of lows before you get to a lot of highs.”

Stroll concluded that “we need to give it some time for everybody to gel”. That time appears to have expired less than a month later.

Adrian Newey
2026-

The F1 rumour mill was convinced that Andy Cowell’s days as team principal were numbered, but it also believed that Christian Horner was in pole position to succeed him.

Few saw Adrian Newey as a replacement. At the beginning of the year, he was said to be shunning meetings and not answering emails as he worked with engineers to design next year’s car, revelling in the focus that he was afforded.

But Newey’s talents extend beyond his supernatural design abilities. During his years at Leyton House, Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, he’s developed a sense of how F1 teams should be structured to work together.

“Any Formula 1 team is similar in as much as has an aerodynamics department, a mechanical design department, and then a simulation and race engineering department.

“Trying to make sure that those all work together, that we have a unified product, not only in its detail but also perhaps just even more importantly in its concept.

“I find that process fascinating and working with my colleagues here with modern support is what we’re here for.”

Newey now has charge of that team. Even for somebody with a renowned work ethic, it won’t be easy splitting his efforts between running it and identifying the design loopholes that have made him the leading designer of his generation.