Mar.11 (GMM) Ralf Schumacher, who knows Adrian Newey personally and spends time with him even away from the paddock, believes the Briton’s tenure as Aston Martin team principal will be short-lived – and that the Honda crisis has only accelerated the inevitable.
The Sky Deutschland pundit and former F1 driver said that combining the roles of team principal and chief designer was a mistake from the outset.
“Someone will soon come to replace him” in the team principal role, Schumacher said, though he was clear that a full dismissal is out of the question given Newey’s reputation and his status as a shareholder.
“He must go back to where he belongs – a position behind the scenes,” he added. “There are plenty of problems to solve, but as a team principal? He may not be suitable for that. That’s simply not how he is.
“I think he’s forcing himself to do this now. We also notice this in the interviews. He prefers to stay in the background, doing his own thing. He also walks past everyone, even if successes have been achieved.”
Schumacher said Newey’s personality makes the public-facing demands of the team principal role particularly ill-suited to him. “He must keep his peace and protect himself, except for a small group of people where he feels comfortable. I should know.
“You have to understand and be able to accept that from him. He’s a kind of deputy at the moment until there’s a switch in the staff.”
The assessment comes amid growing tension between Newey and Honda, after the Briton’s public claims that Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll risked permanent nerve damage from driving the AMR26 prompted a pointed response from Honda Racing president Koji Watanabe, who said he was “puzzled” as to why Newey had spoken on the drivers’ behalf without numerical data to support the assertion.
However, Marca sports newspaper claims the excessive vibration from Honda’s troubled 2026 power unit risks exacerbating old hand and spinal injuries sustained earlier in 44-year-old Alonso’s long career.