Aston Martin 'to appoint former Red Bull F1 chief' as Adrian Newey steps back

Adrian Newey is set to officially step down from his role as Aston Martin F1 team principal after a nightmare start to the 2026 season for the Silverstone squad.

Reports had already began to circulate following last weekend's Chinese Grand Prix that Newey had been put in charge of finding his own replacement, with the design genius absent from the Shanghai sprint weekend in person.

Now, it has been reported that Newey will step away from the team principal role he was announced to be taking on board just last November, with former Red Bull sporting director Jonathan Wheatley believed to be stepping into the position.

A report from Motorsport.com read: "Adrian Newey is set to step down from his team principal position at the Aston Martin Formula 1 team, where he’ll be replaced by current Audi team boss Jonathan Wheatley.

"Motorsport understands Newey will step down in order to focus exclusively on technical matters, as Aston Martin has experienced a more than underwhelming start to the 2026 F1 season. Power unit trouble with new partner Honda means the Newey-designed AMR26 currently can’t complete a whole race.”

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Aston Martin to replace Newey with rival F1 boss

The pressure continues to pile on Newey after a disastrous opening to his first full season in green, with Aston Martin's new works partnership with Honda getting off to an awful start.

After the first two race weekends of 2026, neither Fernando Alonso nor Lance Stroll have been able to complete a full-length grand prix, with the vibrations from Honda's PU so bad during last weekend's race that Alonso was forced to remove both hands from the steering wheel entirely in a bid to feel momentary relief.

But the harsh reality is that the team are battling a lot more than just power unit woes, with owner Lawrence Stroll clearly feeling Newey would be of better use in the role of managing technical partner, the position he was actually hired for.

As the man who has contributed to 26 championship-winning F1 cars now turns his attention to solely improving Aston Martin from a technical perspective, is it Audi F1 team principal Wheatley who has been named as Newey's successor.

But why would Wheatley make the move to a rival team when he has just got off the brand new Audi F1 project off the ground?

Wheatley lined up to leave Audi less than one year on

Wheatley became the first team principal of the rebranded Audi F1 team in April 2025, having departed Red Bull the previous summer where he had worked with Newey as sporting director.

Wheatley was one of the many talents that the energy drink giants lost in the aftermath of Newey's own bombshell exit, with the ex-sporting director harbouring dreams of one day leading a team of his own, something that didn't seem possible at Red Bull at the time given the long-term leadership status of Christian Horner (if only he'd held on that little bit longer).

The Brit then made the move to Sauber, where he became team principal for the remainder of their final season in F1 before being transformed into the first Audi F1 squad, something he previously seemed proud to be heading up.

Just hours before the news of the Aston Martin reshuffle, Wheatley was reported as still being content with his Audi role, with the team based in Switzerland, Germany and Oxfordshire, at the heart of the UK's motorsport valley.

But Wheatley realistically spends little time in his home country as Audi team principal and is believed to have taken an interest in the Aston Martin role due to its location, with the team's Silverstone HQ just 20 miles from Red Bull’s F1 base.

READ MORE: Aston Martin replacing Adrian Newey as team principal the inevitable outcome

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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