Aston Martin, Audi downplay shock Jonathan Wheatley F1 transfer as "hypothesis"

Studies of a shock transfer to Aston Martin by Audi Formulation 1 workforce principal Jonathan Wheatley have been dismissed as “hypothesis” by each groups.

Nonetheless momentum across the story continued to collect on Thursday afternoon, with some high-level F1 paddock sources suggesting that it’s going to occur, whereas workforce insiders in each camps insisted that they knew nothing about it.

Aston Martin denied the suggestion, telling Crash.internet that “the workforce won’t be partaking in media hypothesis about its senior management workforce. Adrian Newey continues to steer the workforce as workforce principal and managing technical accomplice.”

Audi echoed that line, stating “we’re conscious of the latest media stories. There isn’t a official replace from our facet at this cut-off date and we don’t touch upon hypothesis.”

One potential situation is that Aston has sounded Wheatley out in some type of preliminary dialogue, and the information of their contact has damaged earlier than any choice had been made.

As with the motive force market, such contact with bosses of rival groups shouldn’t be unusual.

For instance, it’s understood that Flavio Briatore indicated an curiosity in hiring his former Enstone colleague Wheatley for Alpine earlier than deciding on Steve Nielsen.

On the face of it, Wheatley would appear to have no motive to consider leaving for Aston only one yr into the job.

His departure from his earlier function as Crimson Bull’s sporting director was introduced by the Milton Keynes workforce on 1 August 2024, and he began at what was then nonetheless Sauber on 1 April final yr.

The Swiss workforce made good progress over the course of the season, with Wheatley working alongside Mattia Binotto.

The transition to the Audi id in 2026 has gone higher than many observers had anticipated, with the R26 making Q3 and scoring factors first outing in Australia, though two non-starts within the first two races had been pricey.

Whereas Wheatley seems to be doing nicely, the prospect of working alongside his former Crimson Bull Racing colleague Newey and returning to his UK dwelling base may attraction. There might also be some query of how issues are figuring out with Binotto.

If such a transfer was to go forward, then Wheatley would presumably take over the workforce principal obligations at the moment held by Newey, even when he didn’t essentially get the precise job title.

Given the turmoil across the workforce and its present struggles including a senior individual to the administration combine to take some load off Newey, permitting him to concentrate on his unique function as managing technical accomplice, would appear to make sense.

Nonetheless in Australia Newey downplayed the suggestion that he was being stretched too thinly.

He mentioned: “I believe my title of workforce principal, the distinction in comparison with how I operated, as an example, at Crimson Bull, is that at Crimson Bull I used to be doing a really comparable function however confined to the engineering division, On this function it’s the entire firm, so it’s an even bigger function in that sense, however in some ways it’s an extension of what I’ve been doing for a few years.”