Audi confirmed Wheatley’s departure as team principal just two races after the German manufacturer’s official debut in Formula 1. The Briton will leave the project and his next destination will be Aston Martin, where he will hold the same role.
An open secret that had been talked about finally was confirmed. Since Thursday, the Englishman was negotiating his departure and finally now the Ingolstadt based team made his exit official with immediate effect and confirmed that Mattia Binotto will be the new team principal in addition to his duties as project director.
Wheatley arrived in 2025 after spending nearly 20 years at Red Bull, where he became a legend and a fundamental piece for the team’s successes. The original idea was for him to share leadership with Binotto in a dual command structure that ultimately didn’t end up working as they expected. His career in F1 began in the 1990s as a mechanic at Benetton and later he went through Renault until establishing himself at Milton Keynes, where he achieved an impeccable career.
The Briton will join Aston Martin at a delicate moment because the English team is going through a deep crisis with a car that doesn’t perform according to what was thought it could achieve and a Honda power unit that has been dealing with vibration issues since the start of the season. Wheatley will find a project that promised to make the leap but so far has only accumulated disappointments and will have to do a lot of work against the clock to manage to change the team’s current situation.
With his arrival, Newey will be able to focus on what he does best, which is designing and creating fast cars. The Englishman had taken on the role of team principal last November but never ended up feeling comfortable with the operational and administrative tasks. The pairing between Newey and Wheatley already worked before at Red Bull for 20 years, so the chemistry is guaranteed.
Audi, for its part, is left with a reduced structure because in addition to losing Wheatley, they also lost a defined team principal since Binotto will have to take on a dual role. The German team announced that there will be significant changes in its senior management and that it will define its new organization at a later stage. The goal remains to compete for championships toward 2030, but with such a turbulent start, it seems the road will be longer than expected.
Wheatley’s departure raises doubts about the German project because losing a key piece with so much experience after just two races is a bad sign. The team will have to reorganize quickly to not fall behind, while Aston Martin hopes the Briton can bring that dose of order and discipline that a team which promised to fight at the front and ended up stumbling so badly so desperately needs.
The driver market in F1 moved strongly again and this time the protagonists were Audi and Aston Martin, who swapped roles without a race in between. Now we have to wait to see if Wheatley manages to steady the ship at Silverstone or if, on the contrary, the English team continues accumulating problems with no solution.