Jonathan Wheatley takes Adrian Newey’s place as Aston Martin F1 team principal

There is nothing surprising about Adrian Newey stepping down as big-picture boss after four months on the job. I think the Formula 1 world was too polite about that appointment. Newey is renowned for wanting to be left alone by businesspeople to concentrate on hand-drawing aerodynamic diagrams. He doesn’t want any part of the big picture. On the other hand, Aston Martin’s actual race car is such a dumpster fire that perhaps there was no one else in the organization who knew enough about race cars to fix it. There probably still isn’t.

What’s surprising is that Jonathan Wheatley is leaving Audi to do the job. The speculation is that Newey recommended Wheatley to Lawrence Stroll himself, and that makes sense. Wheatley is the man, and Stroll seemingly does not care how much of his fortune is left at the end of his time in racing. But this sucks for Audi. They are just getting their legs under them, and Wheatley seemed to be central to the project.