The beleaguered Aston Martin team could be set for its fifth team principal in just over four years following reports that Adrian Newey is set to step down from the role to focus on his technical brief.
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Autosport has reported that the team is set to hire Audi principal Jonathan Wheatley, though the BBC says no contract has yet been signed.
Newey joined Aston Martin last March as managing technical partner on a staggering contract worth $59 million a year, giving him oversight of the team’s design department, but he reportedly clashed with then team principal Andy Cowell over the squad’s direction as it slipped down the constructors championship table.
The conflict resulted in Newey, who is also a minority shareholder, taking over the team principal position for 2026, with Cowell shuffled into a strategic role to strengthen ties with Honda’s troubled engine program.
The move was a surprise, with reports late last year having linked several high-profile former team bosses to the role instead, including ousted Red Bull Racing principal Christian Horner, former McLaren bosses Andreas Seidl and Martin Whitmarsh.
There were elements of scepticism in the paddock that the move would be permanent given Newey’s inexperience in the all-encompassing role and the team’s grand ambitions.
Though neither Aston Martin nor its iconic designer hinted at the shuffle being interim or temporary, Newey did suggest at the time that he had taken the role more due to circumstance than planning.
“Since I’m going to be doing all the early races anyway, it doesn’t actually particularly change my workload, because I’m there anyway, so I may as well pick up that bit,” he told Sky Sports last December.
Newey, however, was absent from the weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, just the second round of the season, as the team grapples with its competitive crisis that’s seen both cars fail to finish both grands prix so far this year.
He hinted at the dual pressures on him at the Australian Grand Prix as the depth of the team’s struggles became clear.
“Do I feel as if [the team principal role] is distracting me from my core job of trying to work with everybody, work on my own to come up with ideas, development directions et cetera? A little bit,” he admitted.
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Billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll has now resolved to hire a dedicated team principal to free legendary designer Newey, whose cars have won 26 drivers and constructors titles combined, to focus on the team’s technical problems.
The BBC has reported that Wheatley has been made an offer to join the team but has yet to sign it, though reports suggest it’s all but a done deal.
Extracting him from Audi, however, could be more complicated.
Wheatley took the reins at Audi in a dual leadership structure alongside chief operating officer Mattia Binotto only a year ago. He had been due to serve six months of gardening leave after quitting as Red Bull Racing sporting director in 2024, though this was eventually halved.
A similar or longer arrangement would presumably be in place this year given his higher profile position without negotiation.
If Wheatley were to join this year, he would become Aston Martin’s fifth team principal since January 2022 in what has become a revolving door position at the big-spending Silverstone team.
Otmar Szafnauer was the first Aston Martin team boss in 2021 but was dispatched before the start of the 2022 season and replaced with Mike Krack.
Krack lasted in the role until the end of 2024, when he was shuffled into the chief trackside officer role to make way for former Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell for 2025.
Newey then took control of the team at the beginning of this season, though his reign appears to have lasted barely three months before alternatives were sought — though he could remain in place until Wheatley joins the team.
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Autosport has reported Wheatley is motivated to move in part because he does not have full autonomy over the team in his joint leadership role with Binotto. That would suggest he will be given more leash to run the Aston Martin operation underneath owner Stroll, with Newey sequestered to technical matters.
Intriguingly, the BBC has further reported that Horner met with Stroll this week but that Newey was opposed to his former boss joining the team as principal.
Aston Martin is last in the constructors championship as one of only two teams, alongside Cadillac, yet to score this season. The team has yet to finish a grand prix with either car.
The competitiveness of the chassis is unproven given the package’s limitations, though Newey believes he has designed a top-five car that could be competing for wins by the end of the year.
That claim remains unproven, however, owing to Honda’s underpowered and unreliable engine, which has been the team’s first-order problem in its difficult start to the season.
The Honda motor is effectively shaking itself to failure, with the team starting the season with so few spare engine parts that its participation was briefly in doubt in Australia and China.
Honda came up with some countermeasures to allow the car to run for more than a handful of laps at a time, but those fixes have not prevented vibrations from the engine from shaking the cockpit and the drivers, who risk permanent nerve damage with long stints in the car.
Fernando Alonso retired from the weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix with numbness in his hands and feet.
Honda’s home Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit, a track it owns, is next weekend.
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