Ahead of the 2025 season, Aston Martin have reshuffled their senior management team, promoting Cowell to the role of CEO and Team Principal just three months after he joined the Silverstone-based team. But what’s behind this ‘shock’ rejig and is it that much of a surprise?

Since the announcement of Adrian Newey’s signing to the team back in September last year and coupled with poorer on track performance, the motivation to revive the team ahead of the 2026 regulations has never been so clear. This motivation, at its heart, stems from that of Lawrence Stroll to do what it takes to promote the squad to the front of the field by the onset of the new regulations.

Stroll is leaving no stone unturned in this path to building the team up, including a multi-business power unit partnership with Honda as the supplier of the 2026 power unit, Aramco as a fuel supplier and Valvoline providing lubricants. Beyond the hardware for 2026, Stroll has secured the services of design extraordinaire Adrian Newey as Managing Technical Partner to not only play a role in car design but also technical management.

Newey’s signing itself speaks to the level of operation being undertaken at the Silverstone campus, which it’s noted that Newey was impressed by and played a role in convincing him to join. Aston Martin have constructed a state-of-the-art wind tunnel as part of the third phase of their campus building project, which will feed into the development of their 2026 challenger and be available to Newey and his team as he begins work from March of this year.

With all of these high level projects and signings, it seems only natural that their influence is felt at each level of the team – which is evident in the senior management reshuffling announced on Friday.

Andy Cowell joined Aston Martin just three months ago as CEO, replacing Martin Whitmarsh, but in these months has seen weaknesses to the team structure that his self-appointment as Team Principal and assignment of others to key roles aim to address.

In a statement issued on Friday, Cowell said, “I have spent the last three months understanding and assessing our performance, and I’ve been incredibly impressed by the dedication, commitment and hard work of this team…we are on a journey to becoming a Championship-winning team. These organisational changes are a natural evolution of the multi-year plans that we have scheduled to make and I’m incredibly excited about the future.”

On Cowell’s arrival at the team it’s reported that he felt there was an element of confusion between trackside and campus-based operations, with comments to The Race suggesting that he is looking to simplify and clarify each individual’s role: “My job is to create a team, and in a team everybody knows what their role is. They know their position on the pitch.” Friday’s announcement indicates a new increased level of distinction with the aim of providing “clarity of leadership” and reducing distractions or communication issues that it’s understood and reported Cowell felt were affecting personnel. 

This began with moving Dan Fallows, ex-technical director, aside in November, citing “performance-based” reasons for his exit after a promising 2023 season was followed by an underwhelming 2024. In his place the team have now appointed Enrico Cardile as Chief Technical Officer, and it’s made clear that he will spearhead operations for the campus-based team and oversee the ‘architecture, design and build of new race cars’ rather than the day-to-day operations.

Mike Krack will move to be Chief Trackside Officer, a role that will see him continue to extract the most performance out of the car at the racetrack and has now meant the role of performance director is no longer required. As a result, Tom McCullough will move to a ‘leadership position’ according to the team, playing a role in expanding the team’s broader range of racing categories. 

This reshuffle is aimed at providing a greater “clarity of leadership” with the hope of harnessing the potential of Aston Martin’s assets to propel the team up the grid and into a title fight in 2026.