Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has appeared to firmly shut the door on any tie-up with Christian Horner in the future, but intrigue continues on how the squad will be run next year.

It is understood that Stroll and Horner have been involved in advanced talks for months about the possibility of a senior position for the former Red Bull boss as part of a partnership that would involve equity in the team.

However, the potential for a deal coming off was thrown into confusion earlier this week when Aston Martin made the surprise announcement that Adrian Newey was becoming team principal next year.

While sources suggest Horner’s negotiations were never about a team principal role, so any arrangement with him would be totally independent of the Newey move, Stroll has appeared to pour cold water on the idea of anything happening.

It has emerged that during his address to staff earlier this week when he announced Newey would be taking over as team principal, Stroll made reference to stories that the team was  ‘entertaining hiring’ Horner.

He is understood to have told staff that “that is absolutely not happening, and is not true."

Stroll furthermore went on to say that Newey’s promotion as team principal was not a temporary one and that the structure that was announced is what it will remain as.

With Aston Martin representatives having talked to Horner, it is not clear whether Stroll’s stance in front of staff is denying the specifics of Horner ever being considered to be team principal, or is a sign that any potential partnership is now completely off the table.

Stroll’s indication that the new leadership structure will remain as it is has also prompted some further intrigue about how things will be run next year.

Newey’s strength is well known to revolve around car design and performance, so expanding his job to include wider team principal responsibilities would appear to take him off his core focus.

Speaking at the Qatar Grand Prix, Newey has suggested that his new position will not actually give him that much more to do - which indicates he would not be taking much extra responsibility.

"Since I'm going to be doing all the early races anyway, it doesn't actually particularly change my workload, because I'm there anyway, so I may as well pick up that bit,” he told Sky.

But with team principals traditionally getting involved in wider matters, like HR performance reviews, media duties and F1 Commission meetings, it is not clear who will take on all of this at Aston Martin next year.

Newey himself said on Saturday that he would “try to minimise” other elements of the job that could distract him.

The obvious solution for this would be for Aston Martin to appoint someone new to the CEO role that former team principal Andy Cowell had. This would help free up Newey from tasks he did not want to waste his time with.

While this would be logical for someone like Horner or former McLaren boss Andreas Seidl, who had also been linked to the team, Stroll’s remark to staff appears to suggest that right now he is not thinking of going down that route.

Aston Martin is one of several options that Horner has, with talks having also taken place with Alpine, and he's also discussed the idea of setting up a 12th team with backers.