Audi’s F1 mission shall be led by Jonathan Wheatley.
Wheatley is a former mechanic-turned-team boss with championship-winning expertise.
Wheatley grew up in racing and tinkers on his basic Audis and Porsches.
Audi is formally becoming a member of the grid for this 12 months’s Components 1 season. However whereas the German marque is understood for its precision engineering, the crew will not be led by a squeaky-clean strategist who’s afraid of getting his arms soiled.
The 4 Rings mission shall be led by Jonathan Wheatley—a real gearhead. Wheatley labored his method up the ladder from the ground of the pit storage. Starting as a humble junior mechanic within the early Nineteen Nineties with Benetton, he earned his stripes as he climbed the ranks of the Enstone-based squad.
After successful two constructors’ championships with the crew and being promoted to chief mechanic, the Buckinghamshire-born Briton moved to the ranks of Purple Bull Racing as crew supervisor and sporting director.
Whereas he clearly thrives in probably the most technologically demanding motorsport collection, he has a deep obsession with the oily and unsafe world of basic automobiles. And this is how you realize he is actually one in all us: Group B rally.
Wheatley’s Rally Roots
Photograph by: Audi
Chatting with Motorsport Week, Wheatley defined why the transfer to Audi got here so naturally after a childhood fuelled by Quattro four-wheel drive.
“The whole lot I may examine motor racing I took in,” he mentioned. “And there was an unbelievable Audi Group B period, you realize? And even earlier than that, simply the traditional Quattros and simply watching these automobiles within the forest, after which following these monster Trans Am automobiles that they constructed.
“If you happen to’re a child, seeing automobiles with flames popping out of the exhaust is strictly what that you must encourage you in the direction of motor racing… So I feel out of all of the alternatives I needed to additional my profession, I imply, I used to be drawn in the direction of Audi.”
‘If you happen to’re a child, seeing automobiles with flames popping out of the exhaust is strictly what that you must encourage you in the direction of motor racing.’
Leaving Purple Bull on the finish of 2024, Wheatley joined Sauber as crew principal because it was readying itself for its Audi takeover. However because the son of a racing driver himself, he discovered the mechanical ropes earlier than he even set foot in a automotive.
“I used to be in all probability doing tire pressures on my dad’s automotive once I was eight or 9 years outdated,” he continued. “Understanding how issues work. I used to be at all times superb with my arms, working with issues. I used to be taking issues aside, constructing mannequin plane, mannequin automobiles, making an attempt to grasp how suspension works.”
When he began karting, this data grew to become extremely helpful. “No person else was going to organize my kart in between races, and my brothers, so I did that. So I form of grew up working with my arms and loving fixing issues. Perhaps there’s a form of thread that runs via. I really like fixing issues, making issues higher.”
The Dream Storage
Photograph by: Porsche
Whereas Wheatley at the moment each day drives an Audi RS6, a automotive he describes as having “extraordinary” efficiency, he admits that new equipment is sort of too succesful.
“It’s straightforward. You don’t take into consideration driving. You possibly can simply drive. And I feel additionally the truth that I can do one thing to those older automobiles, to modernise them just a little bit, to make the driving expertise just a little bit higher, use just a little bit of contemporary know-how right here and there…”
That is why his satisfaction and pleasure is a Porsche 911 constructed the identical month and 12 months he was born (Might, 1967).
“[That was] the primary cause for me shopping for it. I work on that automotive myself. I like to enhance it. You already know, the wiring… can’t let you know the issues that I’ve accomplished to that automotive to make it higher.”
Naturally, he additionally each day drives an Audi Quattro.
Photograph by: Audi
“Very low mileage automotive, lovely. [I] Love driving that; surprisingly fashionable automotive to drive. I’ve simply acquired the winter wheels and tires for that, as a result of I drive my automobiles, they don’t sit within the storage, and I’ll be driving that to work over the winter as nicely, on winter tires. I’m trying ahead to the primary snow. I’m going to get some winter tires for my basic 911 as nicely, and I’m going to go and luxuriate in myself on the weekends, driving excessive of those mountains.”
Wheatley is our form of individual. He is somebody who thrives on the driving expertise and never the efficiency.
“I just like the driving expertise, and when you’ve gotten an intense job, like I do, something that fully absorbs you and stops you desirous about the entire different issues which can be occurring in your head at any specific time.”
Motor1’s Take: The Audi F1 crew is in good arms with Wheatley on the helm. A real automotive nut and an skilled motorsports skilled, Wheatley’s data may assist Audi make a critical influence in F1 in its first season.
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