As the 2026 Formula 1 ruleset is not far away, a lot of teams are busy sorting out their driver and personnel rosters.
Although teams cannot start work officially on their cars until January 2025, there is still space to improve other areas in anticipation of the complicated rule change.
As a result, there is a big push for F1 teams to secure the necessary personnel to help improve their chances of producing a title-winning car. Various members of Mercedes recently made the jump to Ferrari, while McLaren has also recruited staff members from Red Bull.
Aston Martin will face a big change when they switch to Honda as their main power unit supplier, which the team hopes will add further momentum to their F1 programme.
Performance Director, Tom McCullough, explained how one key signing is helping them through the big regulation switch in the latest F1 Nation Podcast.
The Aston Martin engineer involved in ‘big picture’ regulation change
Aston Martin secured the services of veteran F1 engineer Bob Bell, who joined from Alpine in an advisory role as their executive director – technical. McCullough said Bell has already had an impact on the team’s preparations ahead of the change in 2026.
“As a workforce, we’ve grown from 350 to well over 800 now and the team has grown in all areas, all departments, but there is still a core group of people who are designing, and developing the car, there are a lot of areas that have grown,” said McCullough.
“Bob Bell joined us recently, he’s adding to that expereince pool and helping us with the way that we’re not only looking to get the most out of the current car and next year’s car, but very much the 2026 car. He’s been involved a lot with big-picture regulation changes and his experience is invaluable at the moment helping steer the technical ship as he is doing.”
Bob Bell brings in important experience
The 65-year-old forms part of Aston Martin’s complicated technical structure, with his key responsibility being for the Technical, Engineering, and Performance functions.
He was notably technical director when Renault won their last Constructors’ World Championships with Fernando Alonso in 2005 and 2006, having also held senior technical positions at McLaren and Mercedes.
Having been with Alpine since 2018, he left the team at the start of the year during the mass exodus of staff following their poor start to the season.
Bell’s appointment to Aston Martin’s technical department, which is led by former Red Bull engineer Dan Fallows, bolsters their chances of achieving their aims to compete with Ferrari and Mercedes regularly at the front of the field.
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