Adrian Newey is joining Aston Martin on a salary that could rise to £30m, including bonuses and add-ons. That is a lot of money for an engineer - but then Newey is not just any engineer. That money is believed to be more than all the drivers are earning, bar Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris.
And in terms of wider British sporting figures, Newey would be behind Anthony Joshua, Rory McIlroy and Tyson Fury, according to business magazine Forbes. It is an eye-watering number, but many would argue the 65-year-old is worth every penny. Newey is regarded as the greatest car designer in F1 history.
His statistics alone speak for themselves - 13 drivers’ championships and 12 constructors’ titles across three different teams in a F1 career which really took off from 1988. But with Newey it is not just about the statistics. It is about what is behind them.
He is a visionary, in more than one sense. It is his unique qualities that Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has bought into, hoping they will be the icing on the cake of an investment in facilities and staff that has already totalled hundreds of millions of pounds. Newey, Stroll believes, is what is needed to turn his team into title contenders within a couple of years.
It is an expensive decision, but one founded on many years of evidence. Newey is as close to a guarantee of success as it gets in F1. On one level, his skill is to see in an arcane and complex set of technical regulations the secrets of what is po.