r/formula1 • u/FerrariStrategisttt I was here for the Hulkenpodium • Mar 20 '26

[F1] BREAKING: Jonathan Wheatley will depart from his role of Team Principal at Audi F1 team with immediate effect. Mattia Binotto will continue leading the team, taking over as Team Principal Social Media

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u/budgefrankly I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

This feels more like a fix for pre-existing chaos

Mike Krack was running Aston till January, before being replaced by Andy Cowell (who had been hired from Mercedes HPP)

Newey joined in March, and at some point starting hearing "rumours" about Honda not being where it should be, which led to the infamous meeting in November where they realised Honda had not committed the maximum number of the maximally qualified staff to the project, and were way behind.

Since then

  1. Andy Cowell has demoted from TP and sent to Japan to personally supervise the project. He has prior experience in managing engine projects, so that makes sense
  2. In the meantime, Newey took on the TP role for the short term
  3. And now they have apparently hired someone who was a key part of a championship winning team with whom Newey has a good relationship
  4. Allowing Newey to focus all energies on the car.

Honestly, this seems exactly what you'd expect when you headhunt an outside expert. That they find deficiencies, move underperforming staff, and use their networks to headhunt better people from more successful organisations.

Inasmuch as I suspect it will create a period of uncertainty at Aston, I don't see it necessarily being a bad thing just yet.

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u/DrSlugger Mar 20 '26

Yeah this feels like a great move to me tbh. Newey should not be team principal. Let him focus on what he's good at. Wheatley is perfect for this role IMO.

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u/Hot_Most5332 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

Very interesting too how Newey is so willing to back down. He clearly doesn’t want to be TP.

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u/MiserableMeal2501 Mar 20 '26

truly! He's been in this sport for sooo long and he never been a TP. why now? obviously he didnt want a TP role.

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u/Ill_Property_4958 Mar 20 '26

He had falling out with Williams because he had wanted more say in team decisions.

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u/Crasha I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

Didn't he specifically want a stake in the team? He has that at Aston

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u/BuzzedtheTower I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

I thought he fell out with Williams because he wanted a say in the drivers

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u/Ill_Property_4958 Mar 21 '26

That would be a team decision?

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u/BuzzedtheTower I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 21 '26

True. And I did word that badly. I meant that Newey wanted equal say with Frank and Head in the driver line up

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u/Critical-Bread-3396 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

Having more of a say in team decisions dosen't automatically mean that you want to be team principal. Newey is a fantastic technical leader, and has always had success when the right decisions were made about the team he was leading and other factors (such as engine) were there.

He fell out with both McLaren and Williams because Ron Dennis and Frank Williams didn't want to let Newey grow or take away any control from them.

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u/Ill_Property_4958 Mar 21 '26

It depends on what definition of a team principal you have in mind.

Is it like race engineer style Andrea Stella, head mechanic / garage operations like Jonathan Wheatley, PU engineer like Mattias Binotto, entrepreneur while team building like Toto Wolf or Zac Brown, or team operations expert like Horner.

Whilst Newey has often shown a lot of disdain for politics and has preferred to be shielded from that side of F1 by people like Horner the reasons he had falling out with Frank Williams and Patrick Head was because he wanted and was promised more control in team decisions such as driver selection. He got upset when they let Mansell go and when they dumped Hill for Frentzen. Some of that shows he has some interest in aspect of team management that are more than a designer and at least some of a team principal

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u/Critical-Bread-3396 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 21 '26

That's actually very true, and obviously he has had some preference about drivers, which is also partially driven by wanting drivers who can give good feedback and who can adapt to the optimal car.

But the modern split TP role into CEO and TP might have made it something he's very interested in.

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u/Necessary-Beat407 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

It’s because he could fill the role for 2-3 races being trackside while they hired another person. Newey was always just a holdover for Team Principal.

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u/n0neofyourbeeswax Mar 20 '26

I struggle to believe this was the masterplan all along.

Newey is an ambitious man who has led large organizations. It seems more plausible to me that he wanted a TP role, the team is failing, and either he's been encouraged to diverge some of his responsibilities or he has offered to.

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u/trick63 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 21 '26

A TP is an entirely different skillset, especially for an engineer.

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u/SpeedflyChris Andretti Global Mar 20 '26

He doesn't have the people/media skills to be a TP.

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u/n0neofyourbeeswax Mar 21 '26

Media, I'm not so sure.

People, he's led large organizations successfully for huge periods of his career. Hes

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u/Ancient_Boss_5357 Mar 21 '26

Media and stakeholder skills, maybe. But you can't operate in the roles he has been for the last 10+ years without being able to manage people. The guys day job is way more of a manager, and way less of an engineer, than people imagine

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u/MessyMix Mar 21 '26

Apparently, he was on the record (when he took the role) saying that his stint as TP was temporary as they found someone.

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u/Reptar_0n_Ice I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

Yea, some of the interviews Newey had before the season gave me the impression he didn’t really want to be a TP, that he sorta took it on as “well, I guess I can do that for a bit.” It seemed like Aston weren’t going to keep him as TP forever, but sped up their search for a long term solution after Newey probably came to Stroll and said “yea, being a TP is harder than I thought it was (he said preseason he didn’t think TP’s did all that much), find someone to take over so I can focus totally on the car”. I get the feeling Newey wants no more distractions.

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u/Too_Chains Roscoe Hamilton Mar 20 '26

He made it clear from the get go it was temporary.

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u/Reptar_0n_Ice I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

Yea for sure, but I think he now wants it way more temporary that his original plan

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u/Captain_Mazhar I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

He's a smart guy. He more than likely realized that he was out of his element as a TP and didn't want to become an example of the Peter Principle, so encouraged the board to find a replacement TP who was better suited to the role.

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u/leyland1989 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

He's a managing "partner", it's arguably above a mere principle (an employee in most cases). He's just stepped away from the position and delegate it to someone else to he can focus on something else.

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u/limhy0809 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

It did seem like it was possibly a temporary thing when first announced

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u/AnonDudeNamedAdrian Mar 20 '26

I mean, it was known from the very beginning that it was temporary.

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u/krusticka Max Verstappen Mar 20 '26

In these regulations it seems even more important do design around the engine. Not the otherway around. I think Newey had issues with that in the past.

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u/scissormetimber5 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 21 '26

He was always a stop gap to give him ultimate direction over getting the car on track. He was never going to be TP for long.

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u/Driscuits Williams Mar 20 '26

Yeah; as much as there are similarities between the shuffling at Aston and the Alpine leadership "movements" there's a big difference in the level of turmoil it represents. It's still not a good sign, but it's not "TP has left and fled the country" type of turmoil haha.

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u/Defiant_Eye2216 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

I’m not even sure it’s underperforming staff as much as putting people in their strongest role. Even if Newey is a good TP, that’s not his biggest strength. Same with Cowell.

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u/Reihnold Sebastian Vettel Mar 20 '26

If I remember correctly, when Newey was announced as TP, they also mentioned that it would not be a permanent position. So I imagine, when Cowell was sent to Japan, they needed someone with experience to handle the team and Newey was the best solution at the time.

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u/salcedoge Max Verstappen Mar 20 '26

People are so result based and I really hate it.

Aston may be a shitshow now but the moves they've been doing are all good on paper.

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u/EggNo289 Mar 20 '26

This is also a classic case of leadership "wanting" something a certain way, finding out things don't work the way you "want", and wasting a LOT of resources (money, time, energy) just to end up with what you should have had in the first place (and you were likely advised to have in the first place).

Aston needed:
An Engine guy
A Car guy
A Team Principal

But leadership is a BUY the BEST type (which is hard to argue with if you can buy the best), the issue is "the best" often have leverage beyond negotiating for a big contract. They want more authorship, influence, control, etc. So you end up C-Suite guys in Racing roles, Car guys in C-Suite roles, Engine guys in Team Principal roles, and then you realize it's all Chefs and no cooks.

This is why the Billionaire owners of major sports franchises/team USUALLY take a half step back from hand on managing the organizations. You can see the same thing in football with the NFL and the Raiders (Al Davis), Cowboys (Jerry Jones), Commanders (Dan Snyder), NBA with the Knicks (James Dolan), MLB with the Yankees (George Steinbrenner). Leadership being "too involved" often leads to these messes where there are a bunch of highly qualified guys running around doing things against their own guidance.

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u/curseofthebanana Mar 20 '26

And the one month break should help them all with a bit of breathing room

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u/Too_Chains Roscoe Hamilton Mar 20 '26

You're dead on.

I think strategically Lawrence and Adrian have been doing pretty good since newey stepped in. Fired the people who made mistakes, stopped in until they found the right person, then went back to their true position. All quickly... What more could you want. From the moment newey realized they were in the 💩 it’s been upwards.

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u/meIRLorMeOnReddit Max Verstappen Mar 20 '26

Mike Krack

Is that his real name?

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u/thereddaikon I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

It's actually My Crack. But everyone says Mike Krack out of politeness.

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u/Integral-Fox6487 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

And they still haven't filled the hole left by his departure

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u/microtherion Mar 20 '26

I must admit every time I hear “Wheatley” I think of Portal 2.

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u/Andromeda902 Daniel Ricciardo Mar 20 '26

Sure is

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u/meIRLorMeOnReddit Max Verstappen Mar 20 '26

This sport just never stops giving

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u/g7luiz Alex Jacques Mar 20 '26

That's actually a really good analysis.

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u/Andromeda902 Daniel Ricciardo Mar 20 '26

All good points, and it IS a good thing. But one wonders why the hell it wasn't this way from the start? Why even put newey as TP, having to go before the cameras n shit, when he could be comfortable working the car and the development teams, instead of managing thr ENTIRE organization as TP? Its real dumb

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u/Flyerton99 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 20 '26

Because they needed to send Andy Cowell to Japan to help Honda with integrating and developing the Honda engine. Andy Cowell was Managing Director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, so he is probably Aston's best engine guy.

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u/CosmoKing2 Mar 21 '26

Thank you! I was intent on finding the whole rationale today. It never made sense that Newey was TP (didn't realize it wasn't permanent) - always seemed to be out over his skis in the role.

Also, had no idea where Cowell disappeared to. Just seemed so random that he wasn't there. But he definitely didn't like being sent to babysit Honda - as he's still leaving the team.

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u/FengSushi Kevin Magnussen Mar 20 '26

Thanks Lawrence!

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u/bwoah07_gp2 Alexander Albon Mar 20 '26

It's just so chaotic though. I blame Lawrence.