Andy Cowell speaks on taking up the F1 team principal role at Aston Martin, as he elaborates on the task ahead to make it a championship-winning one.
Just after the new year, Aston Martin announced structural changes where Cowell was named the F1 team principal alongside his CEO role, while Mike Krack was moved to be head of trackside. Having come off from Mercedes, he has spent considerable time at the Silverstone-based outfit.
His experience of handling larger things at Mercedes was instrumental to move him in the team principle role and the changes at Aston Martin was done to simplify things and entrust leaders of each department to come together as one and help the team move forward.
He clarified his role as well, considering Aston Martin is preparing to be a works team from 2026 onward together with Honda. He feels his experience will come handy in that switch. “The changes are designed to improve organisational clarity and race car performance,” said Cowell. “That’s why we took the decision to evolve the Aerodynamics, Engineering and Performance Departments into separate, dedicated trackside and AMR Technology Campus-based teams.
“The trackside team will be led by Mike, who becomes the team’s Chief Trackside Officer, and the latter will be led by Enrico [Cardile] in the role of Chief Technical Officer, with both reporting into me. This restructuring means Mike’s team can focus on getting the maximum performance out of the car at every Grand Prix and Enrico’s team can focus on the complex challenge of creating a new race car.
“My first task has been getting to know people. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people: speaking to those within the business and those outside the business, such as our partners Aramco and Honda. My experience is all in power units, I don’t have direct experience of the world of aerodynamics or creating a Formula One car in its entirety, so that’s given me plenty of opportunity to ask lots of questions.
“Just talking to people and listening. The listening part is the really important bit. It sounds so basic but it’s been crucial for me to get an understanding of who everyone is, what their roles are, how everything fits together, how the organisation is working, where things are working well and where things can be improved.
“The update the team brought to Austin for the United States Grand Prix last year provided a working example. It didn’t deliver the performance step expected; it’s been a case of digging deeper to understand why this happened and implementing changes so that when we bring our next update to the track, which will be our 2025 challenger at the season opener in Melbourne, we’re in a better position and it does deliver what we expect,” summed up Cowell.
The results hasn’t come for Aston Martin in the last two seasons where they have just managed to top the midfield battle but is left behind the Top 4 teams. It is a big task to be a world champion team and for that to happen, they have made several hiring. The big one remains Adrian Newey, who will only start work in March of 2025 – primarily for 2026.
Cowell feels building a sustainable organisation is key to success, which is what Aston Martin is trying for despite the list of people they have brought in. “It’s very much a case of trying to understand people, what their strengths are, how they can contribute to the overall objective, and then you’ve got to stitch the organisation together,” he said, when asked about the hires.
“Everyone should be playing to their strengths, so it’s about working out what they are, how they fit in and how they can contribute to the car. It’s up to me to make sure we’ve got the strength and balance in the team to deliver the best reward in terms of laptime. This all comes down to building an organisation that’s sustainable – sustainable in the sense that you’re not compromising future performance by throwing everything at just one season.
“Yes, you need to be able to focus on the development of this year’s car and you need a group of people focused on getting the best performance from the car at the track throughout the season, but it’s also about making sure that there is sufficient focus on the development of next year’s car and the car after that. You want to avoid a scenario where people are straddling multiple years because people tend to focus on immediate priorities and future priorities end up compromised.
“It’s about investing in the future – investing in those new ideas that no one else has pursued yet and hitting those challenging targets. You need a group of people who want to climb Everest more than once – who are prepared to do whatever it takes to climb to the top and then do it all over again, and again, and again. That’s the fundamental attitude and spirit that Lawrence and I are trying to build within the business,” summed up Cowell.
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