Aston Martin CEO Sends Strong Message After Huge Team Changes - 'Make Your Own Luck'
Aston Martin CEO Andy Cowell, who recently assumed the team principal role, has guided his team with the motto of working hard and creating its own "luck."
Cowell addressed the team at the end of the 2024 season, outlining the roadmap for the future as Formula 1 heads into the final year of the current ground-effect era before transitioning to the new regulations in 2026.
Cowell highlighted the importance of the opportunity that lies ahead next year as Aston Martin could take full advantage of the grid reset to develop a powerful title contender in collaboration with Honda, which parts ways with Red Bull in 2026, and begin the new era on a strong note.
This comes at the back of Aston Martin's big slump in performance in 2024 when the team struggled to improve its car and failed to secure any podium finishes.
The Silverstone outfit has invested significant resources into its new facility, and the onboarding of legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey from Red Bull this season likely hints at a brighter future ahead.
Cowell also highlighted the team's focus on the 2025 car, stressing the need to be both "amazingly creative" and "robotic" in its experimental approach to tackling the challenges ahead effectively. Speaking to the media, he said:
"I guess 2026 is an opportunity for everybody, but we are working hard to make the car quicker for next year [as well], and with our new facilities for 2026, 2027, 2028, we are growing with our facilities.
"I don't like the phrase of rolling a dice, I'm more from the school of: 'you work hard and make your own luck'.
"It is what somebody said about playing golf, the more I do, the luckier I get, so it is every single project I want us to get better at, it is not just targetting one point.
"It is a change for us, but I want to be amazingly creative on everything that we are working on and then really robotic with the way we do experiments, and believe the result from the experiment.
"We will try and lose our emotional attachment to the idea when we look at the results and learn and get back around as fast as we can."
Announcing an internal restructuring ahead of the 2025 season, former team principal Mike Krack has been moved to the team's trackside operations as the new chief trackside officer, while Cowell will perform the dual role of team principal and CEO. Speaking about his new role, 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.
"With the completion of the AMR Technology Campus and our transition in 2026 to a full works team, alongside our strategic partners Honda and Aramco, 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."