Former team principal Jonathan Wheatley has left Audi\u2019s Formula 1 team, as he is expected to take up the same role at rival Aston Martin instead.<\/p>\n
Aston Martin wants a dedicated team principal after managing technical partner Adrian Newey adopted the role for 2026 alongside his main responsibilities.<\/p>\n
The move was widely expected to be a stop-gap solution – although when it was announced in November 2025 it was framed as a definitive measure.<\/p>\n
It appears to have been too distracting, though, especially as Aston Martin is battling serious problems with new works engine partner Honda – and has yet to finish either of the opening two races with either of its cars.<\/p>\n
It emerged earlier this week that Wheatley, who worked with Newey at Red Bull previously, was Aston Martin\u2019s primary target.<\/p>\n
Audi initially refused to engage in the speculation but left the door open to a change with a non-denial denial on Thursday.<\/p>\n
And on Friday it confirmed \u201csignificant changes to its senior management structure\u201d, with the news that Wheatley will depart \u201cwith immediate effect\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Race understands that, while this “immediate” exit pertains the F1 team, he will remain contracted on an undisclosed period of gardening leave before he’s free to make his next move.<\/p>\n
Audi cites \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d for Wheatley\u2019s exit, with the Briton widely reported as being keen to relocate back to the UK from Switzerland, where the Sauber company operating Audi\u2019s F1 team is based.<\/p>\n
Audi\u2019s F1 project leader Mattia Binotto will now take on the team principal responsibilities as well.<\/p>\n
However, further changes are coming, as Audi said its \u201cfuture structure will be fully defined at a later stage\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former team principal Jonathan Wheatley has left Audi\u2019s Formula 1 team, as he is expected to take up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-553186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}