Audi’s head of F1 Mattia Binotto has confirmed the team is seeking a replacement for Jonathan Wheatley following his shock exit from the team.<\/p>\n
Wheatley suddenly departed the squad after the Chinese Grand Prix earlier this month, just two races into Audi’s debut F1 season.<\/p>\n
Wheatley took on the role last year when the team still operated as Sauber and oversaw the transition to the German manufacturer this year.<\/p>\n
However, his exit came as a great surprise, but Binotto has insisted it has not shifted the motivation inside the team.<\/p>\n
“Before we come to what the plan for the future, I have to say that the team has remained very focused and concentrated,” Binotto told media including RacingNews365.<\/p>\n
“Operationally, the team has performed very well. We can be pleased showing that, in the end, it’s not about an individual, it’s about the team.<\/p>\n
“What counts the most is the team. So I would not be concerned for the future because of individuals.<\/p>\n
“If you look at the whole team performance again, it has been a great team performance. We have great pit stops this weekend, and the people, I would say, generally speaking, are well managed.”<\/p>\n
Whilst Binotto has stated Audi is not looking to directly appoint a new team principal, he stated it is necessary to install someone who can handle the management of the squad during a race weekend.<\/p>\n
“For the future, we are not looking for a new team principal,” he said. “I will keep the role, but I will need someone to support me at the race weekend.<\/p>\n
“I will not always be at the race weekend myself. I need to focus most at the factory, where there is the most [work] to transform, not only to develop, to transform.<\/p>\n
“So certainly, a supporter at race weekends is required.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audi’s head of F1 Mattia Binotto has confirmed the team is seeking a replacement for Jonathan Wheatley following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,3513,3516,3514,111,139,69,3512,213],"class_list":["post-357614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357614","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=357614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}