Lawrence Stroll could make last-minute Aston Martin decision, F1 insider warns

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Aston Martin

Lawrence Stroll could make last-minute Aston Martin decision, F1 insider warns

Lawrence Stroll has owned Aston Martin since 2018

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Wednesday 15 April 2026 10:55

An F1 insider has suggested that Lawrence Stroll 'can be a bit capricious' and that an expected Aston Martin signing still might not happen.

Stroll bought the Silverstone-based F1 team back in 2018, and since then they have been known as Racing Point and, since 2021, Aston Martin.

Stroll has the ambitions of turning the team into a championship-winning outfit, and wanted that to happen as early as 2026 with the new regulation changes sweeping into F1.

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But the Aston Martin team have started the 2026 season as the slowest team on the entire grid, with their Honda power unit partnership providing them with terrible reliability problems.

Design legend Adrian Newey - one of several big-name signings made by Stroll since buying the team - is desperately trying to turn things around, but is currently working as both managing technical partner and team principal.

It's this that has led to suggestions that Aston Martin are on the brink of singing a new team principal to sit alongside Newey, with Brit Jonathan Wheatley widely expected to take over the position having left Audi last month.

But now, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson has suggested that the move still might not happen, claiming that Stroll has a tendency to change his mind.

"I don't actually know whether that's definitely going to happen yet," Benson told the Chequered Flag podcast. "Lawrence Stroll, the team owner there, can be a bit capricious.

"People say that he listens to the last person he spoke to and that's where his head is. So, it could be within six months, could be within a year. I honestly don't know. I don't know what's going to happen in that scenario."

Asked by podcast co-host Harry Benjamin if there could be a chance that Wheatley could find a new position as team principal with another team, Benson said: "Well, there's not any obvious other openings at the moment and there's been a gap hasn't there since all this broke. It's been a couple of weeks since that broke and people have not been in touch with each other because of Easter holidays and getting back from Japan and what have you. So there's no obvious openings in any other team at the moment. So, if he doesn't get the Aston Martin job if that doesn't end up transpiring…. it will take some time to find another role I think.

"Also the other thing is team principal roles, they don't grow on trees, do they? They come up every now and again and it's not always that easy to get into one.

"Once you've been out of the business for a while, then your currency decreases and people might not find you as attractive."

Newey stepping down at Aston Martin?

The rumours surrounding Wheatley and Aston Martin have come as a result of it being reported that Newey is looking to step away from his team principal duties, and instead focus more on where his skills lie in car design.

Newey-designed cars have claimed a whopping 26 championships all told, and the British F1 legend has a lot of work to do if he is to turn Aston Martin into a winning outfit.

Wheatley stepped down from his Audi role just two races into the new Audi project, with the team citing it was for 'personal reasons'.

It is understood that the Brit has been looking for a role with which he can move back to the UK, having been based in Hinwil during his time with Sauber/Audi.

Wheatley and Newey have worked together before, very successfully at Red Bull between 2006-2024.

F1 Aston Martin Jonathan Wheatley Lawrence Stroll