The Japanese Grand Prix hasn't even started and two teams are already making news for all the wrong reasons.
Jonathan Wheatley is out of Audi. After just two races in what is regarded as a historic debut season for the German manufacturer in F1, the team principal who led the old Sauber operation through its rebrand has departed – officially for personal reasons, which is the kind of statement that invites more questions than it answers. Mattia Binotto, already serving as overall head of the Audi F1 project, has taken over team principal duties in the meantime while the team considers its next step.
Is Audi's old boss going to be Aston Martin's new boss?
Of course, the timing is not coincidental. Aston Martin are looking for a dedicated team principal to take the day-to-day burden off Adrian Newey, who never seemed particularly enthusiastic about the administrative side of the role and made it clear that the position was effectively a gap-filler. Wheatley and Newey go back decades – they spent several years together winning championships at Red Bull, and Wheatley's background in race-weekend execution is exactly what Aston Martin doesn't have right now. Whether quitting gardening leads to delays is not clear, but the dots connect very well.
For Audi, losing Wheatley is a real headache. He was the continuity between the identity of Sauber and the new works team – the institutional knowledge went out the door ten months after his arrival. Bortoletto scored points in the team's very first race in Australia, so it's not like the operation is going bad. But Binotto now has both jobs while they sort out a long-term structure, and that's not ideal for anyone heading into a season when Audi is still learning what its own car really needs.
However, Aston Martin's situation is something else entirely.
Aston Martin has enough shit
Neither Alonso nor Stroll have finished a race in 2026. Not even one. The Honda power unit was producing such severe vibrations that Newey told the media in Australia that Alonso felt he could not safely complete more than 25 consecutive laps without risking permanent nerve damage to his hands. The walk limit was even lower, at 15 laps. These are not the kind of problems you address with a change in management.
Its roots go deeper than a bad engine spec. When Honda recommitted to F1 at the end of 2022, much of its original engineering group had already moved on and Newey later admitted that he did not realize how inexperienced the reorganized Honda team really was until November last year, when rumors emerged that Honda would not be able to achieve its original power targets for race one, when he and Lawrence Stroll traveled to Tokyo. Until then, no one could do much about it.
Newey's fingerprints are also on the timeline. Honda's project general manager said that Newey requested a two-tier battery configuration to meet packaging requirements, which left them with time constraints. Building a Works Engine partnership from scratch under the new rules is significantly more difficult without last-minute design changes from your own technology partner.
Lawrence Stroll issued a rare public statement this week, insisting that Navy remains the core of the operation and that Aston Martin "does not currently adopt a traditional team lead role." This made the structure appear deliberate rather than chaotic. It's a tough sell when both of your drivers are sitting in cars that can barely finish the race.
What makes all this especially strange is the venue. Suzuka is Honda's home race. The Japanese manufacturer will have its own people in the grandstand this weekend, watching the power unit that has made its works partner the worst team on the grid through two rounds. The rules don't allow Honda to make meaningful development changes until after Miami in May, meaning Alonso and Stroll will head to Japan knowing that the fundamental problem won't be fixed this weekend, no matter what happens in the management structure above them.
Two teams, two sets of problems. One of them can probably handle it. The second will require more than a new team principal.
