Enrico Cardile opens up on move from Ferrari to Aston Martin and focus on F1 2026, while working under Andy Cowell and Adrian Newey.
In its Undercut series, Aston Martin shared lengthy chat with its new chief technical officer Cardile, who has started work at AMR Technology Campus after moving from Ferrari and being allowed to do so. The Italian’s current team got into a court battle against his former team about the start date.
But all is now done, with Cardile focused on the 2026 car under the guidance of Cowell and Newey. The Italian has moved to United Kingdom with his family to be closer to the Silverstone base. It isn’t completed yet but will be soon, to avoid any kind of distractions.
He is not going to attend any races for Aston Martin this year, but plans to do so in 2026. It is a big move leaving a team like Ferrari for an Italian, but he has embraced it well, even though there are cultural differences but the core part of pushing for success remains the same.
“Yes, I want to be fully committed, fully focused, with no distractions,” said Cardile in an interview to Aston Martin. “I’m completely here now, my wife is two-thirds here, one-third in Italy, but soon to be 100 per cent in the UK. I couldn’t have the focus this job demands if my life were split between Italy and here. To be clear, I decided to join Aston Martin Aramco and move my life to the UK because this is an amazing project with an incredible commitment and strong will to win from the owner.
“You can look at the Technology Campus and see it as a demonstration of the energy and commitment Lawrence Stroll is putting into the project. I fell in love with his determination, his vision – and the Technology Campus he’s built to realise it. I’m not planning on attending any races this year. There’s so much work to be done here at the AMR Technology Campus, and the activity around the 2026 car has my full focus. Next year though, yes, you’ll see me at the track.”
“I think there is a difference in culture. The targets are the same: everyone is focused on winning, but the F1 team at Ferrari has a very long and stable history, with established processes and tools. Here, we’re still building up these things. We have the new CoreWeave Wind Tunnel, the new simulator, and we need to work to exploit the potential of these things. We also need to develop the processes within the company for the way we work, building a lean organisation that avoids waste.
“It’s one of the first messages I gave to my team when I started: we need to find our identity and use our vision to shape the organisation so that it works the way we want it to work. It’s fine to take inspiration from other places, but copying the way it has been done elsewhere is not the thing to do. We need to build something that is based on our strengths and allows us to work on our weaknesses. We want to be the reference, not a clone of the existing reference.
“You can’t simply copy what someone else is doing, however successfully they’re doing it, because that means being a follower, rather than a leader, and that’s not the route to success. It’s a work in progress that is moving forward step by step. I have a clear vision and a clear plan, agreed with Andy Cowell, with Adrian Newey, with Lawrence, for what we need to do to improve the organisation. I report to both. One or the other, according to the different elements of the work, but both are my bosses. Again, I’m a lucky man. It’s an amazing team, and I’m surrounded by special people,” summed up Cardile.
Looking more at the work and 2026, Cardile highlighted on how Aston Martin needs to do things slightly different to how other F1 teams operate. They have to be innovative with some chaos which is not entirely possible in a rigid structure. There has to be some fluidity which the F1 team aims to be to secure positive results on track.
“It comes back to being the reference,” continued Cardile. “We need to do stuff differently from other teams, and to do that, we need to be innovative and not mind that this process will come with a bit of chaos. We have to manage the chaos because it will bring positives and greater innovation than if we were an extremely structured, rigid organisation. That wouldn’t bring a lot to the car. This way is more stimulating.
“We’re never going to be satisfied, never going to be happy, because once something works, we’ll already be looking for what comes next. We’ll push people – in a positive manner – and set ambitious targets. We’ll back our people and stay close to them, work hard to understand why they’re hitting difficulties, and discover what the organisation can do to solve those problems. The idea is that no one will be left without help, and that the difficult challenges aren’t a problem for the person to solve by themselves, but for the organisation to figure out.
“We’ve got to be a big family to get results. It’s in this continuous and positive push that I can contribute to stimulating innovation, chaos, and creativity. It’s [2026 regs] going to be a big departure from what we have now. A lot is changing. The aerodynamic concept is changing completely; the reduced minimum weight will be an enormous challenge for everyone. There is a new power unit, there is new fuel. It’s a lot of variables up in the air – and that makes it very difficult to forecast where everyone is going to land.
“We have clear targets in mind for what we want to achieve, and we’re pushing very hard to explore our options. It’s an interesting task. Some of it is about understanding where to gamble: there are development directions that might not yield positive results straight away, but may help us reach ambitious final targets. We’re making some bets. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a project that finishes when the car launches next year.
“Of course, we want to have a quick car at the start of 2026, and right now we’re trying to use the remaining time we have to exploit what we’ve learned to the best of our abilities but, on the other hand, we have a long-term project: we’re working on the organisation, improving our tools, improving our processes, changing the way people are working together. In a word, we’re working on the culture of the team,” summed up Cardile, who feels it may just work out for Aston Martin this time.
The team has been building up to the F1 2026 change with on-site upgrades to infrastructure and also its windtunnel. It will have the Honda’s factory support to become a manufacturer team and has hired key personnel in lead, with the backing of a world champion driver Fernando Alonso.
“Excitement. Definitely. Not just for our car. I’m looking forward to seeing the other 10 cars, to see everyone’s performance, to know if we’re in a good position and have to keep pushing to keep the advantage or if we need to keep pushing to catch teams that are quicker than us. It will be exciting,” said Cardile about the 2026 changes. “…but it’s also exciting now. Because we don’t know where we’ll be, nothing we do now can be enough.
“We can’t be satisfied with good results from a wind tunnel session or a successful weight reduction exercise because we don’t have a reference. That’s true at any time, but especially true at the start of a new cycle. For the last few seasons, everyone has been able to see the gaps and know what they need to achieve to put themselves in a better position. For next year, everything is up in the air.
“We’re going to get it right next year. I just don’t know if we’re going to get it right for the first race, the second, the seventh, or whatever. What we have is commitment, focus, and the confidence that it will be right. We have all we need to do a great job. Failure is not an option,” summed up Cardile
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