Our verdict on Aston Martin trying to poach Audi's F1 team boss

It would seem Adrian Newey wants to offload the 'team principal' aspect of his new 2026 F1 job role ASAP - and so Aston Martin is reportedly back in the market searching for someone to backfill that position.

Audi's Jonathan Wheatley (not quite one full year into that organisation) has emerged as the number one target, but is he the right man for the job, is there a better candidate Lawrence Stroll should be targeting, and what does this latest merry-go-round say about Newey's tenure so far - and the stability (or lack thereof) within the Aston Martin and Audi F1 teams?

Here's our verdict.

One big, long car crash happening in plain sight

Ben Anderson

I don’t even know what to make of Aston Martin anymore. It just seems like one big, long car crash happening in plain sight.

I completely understand the ‘spend big and target the best people you can get’ broad strokes philosophy behind trying to build a superteam inside a cutting edge facility.

But what is still ultimately a human endeavour at its core requires something less blunt than brute force spending to work properly. 

I remember Otmar Szafnauer talking about how important it is for an F1 organisation to be stable in order to attract and retain the right people. 

Aston Martin-Honda undoubtedly appears the most unstable F1 team right now, when you look at how much chopping and changing there’s been over who does what, who leads what, who can work with who etc.

To think it’s barely been 12 months since Andy Cowell demoted Mike Krack and wore the twin hats of CEO plus Team Principal; now it’s Adrian Newey doubling up as Managing Technical Partner plus TP and Cowell is nowhere to be seen. 

But now it seems Newey never really wanted to wear two hats after all and so another new person is being sought to run the team day-to-day.

They could have sorted this out last winter, when those stories about Christian Horner and Andreas Seidl et al being in the frame circulated, but that can was kicked down the road amid Newey and Cowell apparently falling out - and now Aston Martin is looking for its fifth different team boss in not much more than five years!

I don’t see how all this constant instability and knee-jerking within the makeup of the senior leadership structure can be anything other than a massive distraction when the team should be totally focused on turning around what can only be described as a nightmare start to what should have been its best season yet in F1.

Wearing both hats is impossible

Gary Anderson

I said at the time that appointing Adrian Newey team principal as well as his other responsibilities as managing technical partner was wrong and stick by that earlier statement. It’s impossible to do both effectively.

These early season problems for both Honda and Aston Martin have compounded the difficulty, and his comments about Honda in Melbourne will not have gone down well in Sakura. The Japanese I have worked with don’t react well to public criticism.

As for a replacement, yes Jonathan Wheatley is someone that Newey has worked with very successfully - but he is less than a year into his tenure with Audi, so either he and Audi or he and Mattia Binotto are not getting on as planned.

Either way, if Wheatley does accept the job it will be months before he can take over the reins. For me it is the interim that needs shoring up so Aston Martin needs someone that can influence the situation immediately. So, that means looking for someone that is available immediately. That person might not be the best long-term candidate, but they could fill the void required.

Lawrence Stroll doesn’t look like he's an easy character to work for, so Aston Martin needs someone with respect and broad shoulders.

Even though Stroll has spent lots of money he still looks like he has deep pockets, so if Wheatley really is the man for the job and he wants him now he might just have to dig into those pockets again.

The approach of a chaotic, big-money football club

Edd Straw

It is essential that Aston Martin gets itself onto solid ground in terms of the seemingly endless changes in senior management.

While it was always inevitable that they would seek a permanent team principal in place of Newey, the question is why, when this was announced back in November last year, there was no mention that this was only on an interim basis and instead presented as part of "strategic changes".

The word strategic seems difficult to apply credibly to Aston Martin currently, with the approach seemingly that of a chaotic big-money football club.

You can't fault the investment level, what much of the money has been spent on in terms of facilities or the quality of the personnel brought in - both the big names and the rank-and-file people who are invisible to the watching world - but there are big questions to be asked about the leadership skills and culture created. 

So let's have some proper clarity from Aston Martin in future and evidence there is genuinely strategic leadership in place that will turn the vast potential of this team into something more than that.

Delivering that is not, should not and never was Newey's job, but simply having him leading up the technical operation won't be enough without being integrated into a well-run wider machine.

Not as big a deal as it appears

Mark Hughes

Adrian Newey was only team principal by default. When Andy Cowell threw up his hands and said 'I'm out' in response to Adrian making moves he disagreed with. Adrian for sure wasn't expecting Andy to do that and was left holding the baby.

But the role carries lots of responsibilities that only detract from what Adrian's mission is. So he was always going to be surrendering that position again as soon as they got a suitable replacement. 

Mike Krack was the logical man for that role - one he'd already fulfilled before being moved sideways to make way for Cowell to take over. Krack was still there and maybe he didnt want the role.

But logically, the type of TP Adrian needs is someone who is not going to interfere or try to control him, but who is super-competent at all the other aspects of TP, senior but not too senior and leaving Adrian in charge and in control of all the bits he wants to be.

Cowell wasn't prepared to be that. Wheatley could fill that role. So could lots of people. This is not as massive a deal as is being made of it. It's just the next bit of fall-out from Cowell resigning his position. 

Aston Martin desperately needs a proper team boss

Scott Mitchell-Malm

A devoted team principal is something Aston Martin desperately needs.

The job isn’t what it once was given F1 teams are such sprawling enterprises that the split of a CEO/senior business head and team principal focusing on running the F1 team specifically is becoming more commonplace and effective.

McLaren’s arguably the gold standard for that as Zak Brown leads the corporate side and Andrea Stella is given free rein to run the F1 team as he sees fit.

Aston Martin probably can’t offer the same kind of team principal job to someone given Newey’s authority and Stroll’s influence. But it still needs a galvanising force with gravitas in the role - someone experienced and respected who can steer the operation trackside, is happy to engage in media and promotional duties, and can lead by example with the right culture.

For Newey, being team principal was simply a title, and his role was to “provide a direction, an ethos, a culture, that we all work by”.

But what kind of culture is it really fostering by having all of this uncertainty and change? The gap in race team leadership, and turnover, is a clear weakness in Aston Martin’s hierarchy.

It lacks a consistent link between the management/technical leadership axis and the race team having run through team principals with worrying regularity.

Honda’s engine is the big glaring weakness for Aston Martin right now, but there are still problems closer to home to resolve.