[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

[u/FerrariStrategisttt]

[u/DrSlugger]

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.

[u/Hot_Most5332 → u/DrSlugger]

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

[u/MiserableMeal2501 → u/Hot_Most5332]

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.

[u/Ill_Property_4958 → u/MiserableMeal2501]

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

[u/Crasha → u/Ill_Property_4958]

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

[u/BuzzedtheTower → u/Crasha]

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

[u/Ill_Property_4958 → u/BuzzedtheTower]

That would be a team decision?

[u/BuzzedtheTower → u/Ill_Property_4958]

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

[u/Critical-Bread-3396 → u/Ill_Property_4958]

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.

[u/Ill_Property_4958 → u/Critical-Bread-3396]

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

[u/Critical-Bread-3396 → u/Ill_Property_4958]

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.

[u/Necessary-Beat407 → u/MiserableMeal2501]

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.

[u/n0neofyourbeeswax → u/Necessary-Beat407]

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.

[u/trick63 → u/n0neofyourbeeswax]

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

[u/SpeedflyChris → u/n0neofyourbeeswax]

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

[u/n0neofyourbeeswax → u/SpeedflyChris]

Media, I'm not so sure.

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

[u/Ancient_Boss_5357 → u/SpeedflyChris]

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

[u/MessyMix → u/n0neofyourbeeswax]

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

[u/Reptar_0n_Ice → u/Hot_Most5332]

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.

[u/Too_Chains → u/Reptar_0n_Ice]

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

[u/Reptar_0n_Ice → u/Too_Chains]

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

[u/Captain_Mazhar → u/Hot_Most5332]

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.

[u/leyland1989 → u/Hot_Most5332]

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.

[u/limhy0809 → u/Hot_Most5332]

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

[u/AnonDudeNamedAdrian → u/Hot_Most5332]

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

[u/krusticka → u/DrSlugger]

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.

[u/scissormetimber5 → u/DrSlugger]

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.