Toto Wolff snubs Adrian Newey to name most important signing for Aston Martin
Though Adrian Newey is regarded as the greatest F1 designer, Toto Wolff reckoned his previous ally as the biggest signing for Aston Martin.
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Toto Wolff and Adrian Newey, images via IMAGO
Lately, the F1 sphere has been revolving around the news of Adrian Newey joining Aston Martin. This has led experts to assert how the legendary British designer would revolutionize the English outfit and make them a world championship contender. Despite this, Mercedes supremo Toto Wolff snubbed Newey to claim that former Mercedes employee Andy Cowell was the Silverstone-based team’s biggest signing.
With the introduction of the turbo-hybrid era, Mercedes‘ engines became the benchmark. The German marque had invested millions of dollars in the development of the engine, which had set them apart from the rest of the field. The engine division was headed by then-chief Andy Cowell, who was reckoned to be the pillar of the Silver Arrows’ power in the championship, securing a massive eight constructors championship with the engines developed under his reign.
However, he soon left the German giant to find a new challenge. He then joined Aston Martin and is bound to become the CEO of the F1 project.
For me, the most important person in the team is Andy Cowell, who worked at Mercedes on engines and is a very skilled manager. As CEO he will be very effective, because he is someone who understands perfectly how the organization, structure and processes of a Formula 1 team work.Toto Wolff said in an interview as quoted by FormulaPassion
With the vast experience that Cowell holds and his promotion to the CEO of the project, Toto Wolff claimed that the 55-year-old was the biggest signing done by Aston Martin. Though Adrian Newey has had massive fame, he left the Brit designer stranded to commend his former colleague’s stature.
Toto Wolff deemed the high media attention to be a lot for Kimi Antonelli
While Aston Martin has been making strides in F1 on the technical side, Mercedes is not much behind and has thus, made major progress in both team and driver fronts. The Brackley-based outfit recently revealed that Kimi Antonelli would be joining the team next year, making the driver line-up better than their English rivals.
Subsequently, Wolff elaborated on how the massive media attention got Antonelli crossed up in his outing at the Italian GP weekend.
I think how it's all panned out here, he's jumped F3, he's pretty much won everything beforehand then it's clear you start to become a Mercedes driver, you test in FP1, and at the same time you're under the magnifying glass because it all happens in Monza. And it has been a while that an Italian driver was in a top team. So I'm sure that this can be a lot for an 18-year-old. But he needs to swim.Toto Wolff said in an interview as quoted by RacingNews365
The Austrian explained that with the career trajectory of the teenager, he gained traction among the media. This caused pressure to start piling up on the young shoulders of Antonelli. This inevitably became a bit too much for the future Mercedes driver.
On the other hand, Mercedes has been on a great roll recently despite a few one-offs. Thus, the team would like to continue their upward trajectory around Baku and reclaim their throne of being a huge force to be reckoned with in F1.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)