Adrian Newey's crucial role revealed on first weekend in Aston Martin colours

Andy Cowell has explained Adrian Newey's role trackside as he makes his first public appearance for Aston Martin at the F1 Monaco Grand Prix.

Newey started work at Aston Martin as their managing technical partner in March.

This was after a lengthy period of gardening leave following his Red Bull exit.

While Newey's focus is predominantly on the new rules in 2026, Newey's still having an influence on this year.

Newey will attend the Monaco GP this weekend, his first public appearance in Aston Martin colours this year.

Cowell, who is Aston Martin's team principal, explained Newey's appearance in Monaco.

"This weekend, he's here and he will see the way we operate in a race weekend environment," Cowell told media, including Crash.net. "The way we optimise the car.

"We've got the way we play a different strategy so having his experience and insight looking to see what's going well, what's not so well, just helps with our jobs on what to work on to become a stronger team."

After a difficult start to the season, Imola proved to be a significant step forward for Aston Martin.

Unlike in recent years, their upgrade package had a positive impact on their performance.

Cowell was keen to point out that Newey's main focus is on 2026 and the "architecture of the car".

However, he did reveal that "lunchtime conversations" have led to talks about how to get the most from the current challenger.

"So when Adrian joined at the beginning of March we said 'right, we need Adrian to focus on 2026 and the architecture of the car', which is what he's primarily been focused on," Cowell explained.

"Lunchtime conversations have not just included what he's eating or what he's been doing on the weekend. It also included conversations about our existing car - the '25 car - and what might be issues but it's a separate engineering team that has been working on the '25 car.

"As he's been working on the '26 car he gets to see the tools that we've got, specifically CFD, wind tunnel, the whole journey of information from the drawing board to wind tunnel results, and with that we learn about what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses and how do we maintain our strengths? And improve our weaknesses.

"He's been doing that within the factory. This weekend, he's here and he will see the way we operate in a race weekend environment. The way we optimise the car. We've got the way we play a different strategy so having his experience and insight looking to see what's going well, what's not so well, just helps with our jobs on what to work on to become a stronger team."

Newey will "help absolutely everyone" at Aston Martin

Newey is seen as the final piece of the puzzle for Aston Martin ahead of 2026.

Billionaire Lawrence Stroll has invested heavily in Aston Martin's headquarters at Silverstone.

They've also been on a heavy recruitment drive, signing Enrico Cardile from Ferrari to bolster their technical team alongside Newey.

Aston Martin are effectively a works team from 2026 as Honda will power them.

Cowell believes Newey's qualities will positively impact the entire workforce.

"Adrian's experience. Adrian's insight. Adrian's creativity can help the whole team," Cowell added.

"We need to engineer a faster car but we need to maximise the performance of it until the very last lap of every race so his insight and creativity will help absolutely everyone in the whole team."