Meet the F1 boffin who rakes in as much as Pep: Adrian Newey does all his designs in pencil and ‘can see air’… now Aston Martin are paying him £20m-a-year

Slim, snake-hipped, shaven-headed, impeccably polite, consistently modest, yet fiercely competitive – and the best-paid scientist Formula 1 has ever known.

Adrian Newey, 65, was rewarded on Tuesday for his status as the sport’s greatest car designer by signing a five-year contract with up-and-coming Aston Martin team, as well as taking a 2.5 percent stake in a company worth more than $1 billion.

“A bargain,” Aston owner Lawrence Stroll said to himself.

However you slice the math, and whatever bonuses are thrown into the equation to inflate his earnings, Newey is at least level with Britain’s most highly rewarded football manager, Pep Guardiola, who also earns a reported £20m a year to choreograph Manchester City’s successful flamenco.

We can reveal that Newey only signed the contract an hour or so before his unveiling at 11am on Tuesday morning, with pen put to paper in billionaire Stroll’s office, whose tall windows overlook Silverstone’s main entrance.

Newey’s Aston Martin takeover was officially announced alongside owner Lawrence Stroll (right)

Former F1 world champion and current Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso (left) attended Newey’s unveiling

Of course, the deal had been done a while ago – as we reported – and this was the bunting, the official inking. The good news of Newey’s signing was shared among the staff and there was a big round of applause.

Their chief negotiator, Eddie Jordan, a friend of theirs and their wives’ cottages in Cape Town, was there. A few months work for him, by the way.

And so a new chapter in the Formula 1 story opened. Mark Stewart, son of three-time world champion Sir Jackie, and his production company were on hand to capture the scenes – Newey on stage with Stroll, the Canadian fashion magnate, and racing drivers Lance Stroll, the son of the boss who is so much the driving force behind everything his father does, and Fernando Alonso, the two-time world champion, now 43. Stewart Jnr is making a film about Newey’s life. A release date is set for early 2026.

Newey only signed the contract an hour or so before his unveiling at 11am on Tuesday morning

And that brings us to what makes this quiet, unassuming man such a phenomenon. He was described as someone ‘who can see air’.

For the uninitiated, aerodynamics is (obviously) such a feature of a car’s speed – the machine is the 90 percent ingredient of success before the driver is taken into account – and Newey is the master of such matters. If it could be fully explained or understood, he would not be the most highly regarded man in the sport who is not a driver.

Only he knows the answers, a fact proven by his phenomenal success at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull – 12 world drivers’ championships and 13 constructors’ titles. It sets him apart from all his apparent rivals, which is why before his impending move from Red Bull he was earning more, on £15m, than Christian Horner, his current boss, on £12m a year.

That means that of the star racers on the grid, only Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris earn more. Alonso is not far behind, or is equal.

Newey will leave Red Bull to take up his new role, which begins on March 2 next year, having served out his current term ahead of a major overhaul of the regulations – and all the opportunities that brings – in 2026.

Newey limited himself on Tuesday to saying he needs a new challenge outside Red Bull, where he has been alongside Christian Horner (right).

His announcement that he was cutting ties with Red Bull prompted a flurry of interest – Ferrari almost signed him, a partnership with Lewis Hamilton a big draw. He dodged the question yesterday, saying instead that he and Stroll had gotten to know each other over the years, not least during overseas trips to gyms in the Middle and Far East.

He had previously been prepared to reveal that he had made his decision to move in April, on the weekend of the Japanese Grand Prix – a few weeks after Horner was inundated with allegations that he had behaved inappropriately towards a female colleague, allegations he was cleared of in two internal investigations.

Newey on Tuesday confined himself to saying he needed a new challenge, without once mentioning the mess surrounding Horner.

Newey is still with Red Bull but no longer races regularly – perhaps ever – and the team has deteriorated to the point where McLaren are favourites for the constructors’ title and Norris is 50-50 for the drivers’ title.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But consider what Horner – who, remarkably, oversaw a rare two phases of success at Red Bull – once said: ‘If I had to choose between Michael Schumacher and Adrian Newey, I would always choose Adrian.’

Newey sat a stone’s throw away from Horner for nearly 20 years, drawing his designs in the most old-fashioned way. Computers? Nope. Pencil. His concepts were drawn out on a drawing board. Others would then put them on the computer for him.

His unique ability lies in seeing a set of rules and visualizing them in a way that others cannot in the way a car is built. He did that with the early Red Bull successes, first driven by Sebastian Vettel, and in the latest significant change in 2022 that has seen the extraordinary Verstappen to his recent triumphs.

It should be noted how Williams and McLaren have fallen almost terminally without his involvement. Both are on the road to recovery, with the latter further along the road to redemption than the former.

Newey’s lucrative Aston Martin deal earns him the same amount as Man City manager Pep Guardiola (pictured)

Newey’s genius has contributed to Max Verstappen’s unparalleled success at Red Bull

Newey, a quiet lad at sports-run Repton and then an aeronautical engineering graduate from Southampton University, could have retired from Red Bull and taken up sailing with his wife Amanda. He could have considered retirement.

He is worth a fortune – millions of dollars – but felt he needed a boost and that meant helping Stroll – who called Newey’s arrival the biggest moment in his team’s short existence – with their now joint project at the £200m factory.

“I remember Frank Williams, I think it was in 1991, saying to me that he thought I was the most capable person in the pit lane,” Newey said on Tuesday. “I was a bit angry about that at the time. I didn’t really know what he meant.

‘And I’m not sure he’s right either. I wouldn’t say, for example, that Fernando or Lawrence or whoever is less capable. Not in my hobbies, but I can’t deny that I’m capable in my profession.’ Formula 1 is watching expectantly.