Has Aston Martin's Newey team principal project failed? F1 Q&A
Any team wants Newey focused where he can make the biggest difference - on car design - and not in places such as budgets, dealing with sponsors and media, personnel and so on. Initially, that was the responsibility of Andy Cowell, in his role as team principal and chief executive officer. On paper, that sounds like a good split - Newey's design genius and Cowell's engineering management expertise honed through two decades at Mercedes' F1 engine factory.
The problem was that Cowell and Newey clashed. The details of the clash have not emerged but there was only going to be one winner. So, Cowell was sidelined into a new role of chief strategy officer.
It remains to be seen how long he sticks around, but for now that frees him up to work with Honda. He has been spending a lot of time in Japan trying to help them sort out their engine protect. Stroll, though, was still of the mind that a figure of that type was needed, for the same reasons - to free up Newey to concentrate where he can make the most difference.
So he has been looking around. Stroll was quite close last autumn to recruiting Christian Horner as a CEO-type figure, BBC Sport's sources have said. But Newey has not forgotten why he left Red Bull , and he doesn't want Horner, so he said he would fill the gap for the time being.
Now, the team did not communicate all this at the time, of course. They simply said Newey would become team principal "from 2026". But it seems that the general idea that the team needed someone of that ilk never went away, and it's easy to see why.