{"id":340378,"date":"2026-03-21T07:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T07:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/340378\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T07:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T07:10:10","slug":"audi-formula-one-team-principal-leaves-for-personal-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/340378\/","title":{"rendered":"Audi Formula One team principal leaves for personal reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Formula<\/p>\n

\nFormula One Audi team pit (file photo)
\nPhoto: photosport\n<\/p>\n

Jonathan Wheatley has departed as the Audi team principal for personal reasons, the Formula One team said, amid media reports linking him with a move to Aston Martin.<\/p>\n

Mattia Binotto, head of the Audi F1 project, will also take on the role of team principal after Wheatley’s departure, the team said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Due to personal reasons, Jonathan Wheatley will depart the team with immediate effect,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“The team’s future structure will be fully defined at a later stage, as the organisation continues to adapt to the evolving environment of Formula One.”<\/p>\n

Wheatley had joined the F1 outfit, previously known as Sauber before a take-over by Audi, as team principal 12 months ago.<\/p>\n

Media speculation ramped up on Thursday that Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey was set to be replaced by Wheatley.<\/p>\n

Aston Martin chairman Lawrence Stroll said on Friday that Newey was a partner and important stakeholder in the team.<\/p>\n

“With the current speculation surrounding Adrian Newey’s role in our team, I want to take this opportunity to set the record straight,” he said in a statement shared by Aston Martin.<\/p>\n

“I would like to reaffirm that Adrian Newey is my partner and an important shareholder. He is AMR’s managing technical partner, and he and I have a true partnership built on a shared vision of success for the company.<\/p>\n

“We are regularly approached by senior executives of other teams who wish to join… but in keeping with our policy, we do not comment on rumour and speculation.”<\/p>\n

– Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula One Audi team pit (file photo) Photo: photosport Jonathan Wheatley has departed as the Audi team principal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,213],"class_list":["post-340378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}