Silly season is popping off in top-level management at Audi, Aston, and Mercedes F1

UPDATE March 20, 1:30 PM: Things have gotten pretty spicy in this one.

After issuing a terse non-denial yesterday that was enough for me to decide the story was at least half-true, Audi today announced a new management structure in which Jonathan Wheatley is leaving effective immediately for “personal reasons” and Mattia Binotto will add team principal — a job at which he performed not-excellently at Ferrari before joining this team — to his list of titles. There has been additional reporting to suggest Binotto and Wheatley didn’t get along, which I guess is obvious given what’s happening. Again, this sucks for Audi.

Not to be outdone, Lawrence Stroll released a goofball statement as an Aston Martin press release where he “set[s] the record straight” that Adrian Newey is his “partner and an important shareholder,” and that he’s not going anywhere, which we knew. Stroll reminds us that Aston does not adhere to “traditional” conceptions of the role of team principal (again, we know), but all this chaos and ambiguity is apparently “by design.” Then he drops the real banger, which I will quote in full:

“We are regularly approached by senior executives of other teams who wish to join Aston Martin Aramco, but in keeping with our policy, we do not comment on rumour and speculation.”

Absolutely hilarious framing. It’s not out of the question that this is all Wheatley’s idea, but what is out of the question is that Wheatley would quit his job running the Audi F1 team if his next move weren’t a done deal, so for Stroll to make it sound like people are beating down the door is silly. I did see a report that Stroll took another meeting with Christian Horner this week, but at this point I’m starting to think that’s all Stroll trying to recruit him, and he’s saying no. Never mind the fact that, to all appearances, Newey hates Horner.

Anyway, can’t wait to see how this one lands. Another enticing tidbit is that Mercedes has — magically, coincidentally, just today — promoted Bradley Lord to deputy team principal and Toto Wolff’s formal number two. I’m sure that has nothing to do with TP vacancies suddenly appearing at any brand new F1 teams.

---

Original post, March 19, 2:09 PM:

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.