Fernando Alonso has welcomed the impending arrival of former Mercedes HPP boss as CEO of the Aston Martin F1 team. Cowell will join in October and replace Martin Whitmarsh, the man who originally hired him for Mercedes in 2004. Cowell remained with Mercedes until his departure in early 2022, winning seven championships with the factory team.
Alonso used Mercedes engines overseen by Cowell at McLaren for a single season in 2007, when he came close to winning the World Championship.
“Very happy,” said the Spaniard when asked about the news. “I don’t know him personally, and I only respect him as an opponent in the past.
“I’m looking forward to meeting Andy and to chat about his view on the team. Obviously, Lawrence [Stroll] has a lot of trust on him, also Martin.
“By the way, I want to say thanks for a great contribution to Aston Martin. When Martin arrived in the team, it was just the transition from its previous name to Aston Martin, and he did a lot for the team and for the organisation. So hopefully, before Martin leaves, we can deliver something on track to make him happy.”
Alonso acknowledged that given his powertrain background Cowell could play a role in helping to integrate Aston Martin with Honda and fuel supplier Aramco in the build-up to 2026.
“With his background and experience, it’s a crucial time for the team. Being with Honda, and having our own gearbox, our own fuel with Aramco, that we are not sharing with other team or any other Honda-powered teams,” said Alonso.
“Definitely, there are a couple of big challenges ahead for our team and this kind of people and great you know, engineers and designers will help us for sure.”
Alonso says that Aston Martin still has appeal to potential recruits despite the difficult 2024 season with the AMR24.
“Aston Martin is very exciting project,” he said. “We are aware of our results on the weekends that are not good enough. We need to get better. We need to get to a position first, to be in the top 10 every race and be in the points. And then fighting for podiums and for victories, as we did last year.
“We are not in that position yet. So everything is a little bit more difficult to express how motivated and how excited everyone is in the team.
“We are still very appealing for talent. And as we see with Andy and some of the big names that are linked to the team, new facilities, every time that I come here for the simulator, it’s getting bigger and bigger, building two and three are nearly finished wind tunnel at the end of the year coming.
“So this is for sure, very attractive for many people in the paddock and for many great engineers. Hopefully, the team is in good shape. We just need to deliver on track on Sunday, which is the most difficult thing.
Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll agreed that Cowell will have a big impact.
“It’s very exciting,” said the Canadian. “And I think it’s uplifting for the whole team, the whole factory. To see Andy come on board and be a part of the project – a legend of the sport, and so much success over the years on the power unit side in Mercedes. Nothing but exciting and positive news.
“He’s going to be, I think, involved in every department and overseeing and supporting everyone’s needs in the entire factory. He’s got a huge ambition to win. And I think he’s very motivated to come back into F1 and has all the same ambitions that we as a team all have. So it’s very exciting.”
Stroll also paid tribute to the departing Whitmarsh: “I think Martin’s been an extremely important part of this team over the last few years. He came in and constructed this incredible factory.
“We saw our performance last year, the uplift, we were the sixth or seventh team in 2022. And then we hit the track the beginning of last year with the second quickest car. And a huge part of that was a big push from Martin.
“And some of the goals that we set as a team were really, really high. And I think a lot of that was Martin.”
