Fernando Alonso on working with Adrian Newey: "You need to use all your brain capacity"

Two-time Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso has opened up about working with Adrian Newey, claiming that "you need to use all your brain capacity" to be able to understand him in some moments.

Newey joined Aston Martin as a shareholder and managing technical partner on 1 March 2025 after the move was announced in September 2024. The 66-year-old, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest engineers in F1, arrived at the Silverstone outfit after an almost 20-year stint at Red Bull. He has previously also worked for March, Williams and McLaren, and over the years, Newey-designed cars have won 14 drivers' and 12 constructors' championships.

While the Briton joined the Lawrence Stroll-owned team this year, his focus is solely on the 2026 car and the regulations change.

"Yeah, he's an incredible person, the best designer in the history of our sport, and everyone in the team is learning a lot from him," Alonso explained to Aston Martin when asked what it was like to work with him after they had both previously said they wanted to work together.

"Everything Adrian does, you try to understand why he is doing that, why he chose that direction, or why he's answering in that way, because there is always something to learn from him. Even from a simple answer that he can give to you in response to a question, that simple answer can be so clear to him, but why is it not for others?

"There are moments when, to be able to understand him, you need to use all your brain capacity. Even if Adrian only uses 5%, for us, for normal people, we need to use much more. [Laughs.]"

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

Discussing his meetings with Newey, Alonso added: "[Laughs.] No, at the moment, our meetings have been very informal and general about the rules. We've not gone into deep details on something. Obviously, he's curious to know our feelings and our understanding of things.

"You know, maybe he's going in one direction and he wants to just tell us how that might impact our way of driving the car, and ask if we had any experience of that in the past and these kinds of things.

"But at the moment, he's very focused. He's always in his room, at his drawing board and just focused on delivering results. We will go into more details when the car is in a more developed phase."