Mercedes, Audi, and Aston Martin teams published press releases within a few hours regarding changes in their leadership. Mercedes is betting on stability, Audi is undergoing changes, and Aston Martin is quiet before bigger reshuffles.
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On March 20, a lot was happening in the top positions of F1 teams, and this is certainly not the end. The balance of power in 2026 has undergone significant changes, with several teams posting much worse results than expected. In such situations, owners usually decide to make personnel changes. So we can expect other changes among F1 team principals this year.
Mercedes bets on stability
Mercedes was the first to publish its press release. Bradley Lord received a promotion to the position of deputy team principal. Lord is a former journalist who has been working in Formula 1 for many years. He has been working at Mercedes since 2013, starting as a communications manager, later promoted several times, and in recent years served as “team representative and communications director”. In recent years, Lord always sat next to Toto Wolff in the team garage and was his right hand. When Wolff missed a race weekend, Lord would replace him on site. Therefore, formalizing his duties as “deputy team principal” is not surprising. Lord actually already replaced James Vowles and Jerome d’Ambrosio in this role, who previously formally (or informally) held such a position at Mercedes.
According to the press release, nothing changes in the team, Toto Wolff remains CEO and team principal, and the scope of his responsibilities will remain the same. Mercedes is adjusting its structure, other F1 teams have already done this, they don’t have one principal responsible for everything.
Major changes at Audi
Jonathan Wheatley announced in August 2024 that after 18 years at Red Bull, he was leaving. After completing his gardening leave period, in April 2025 he became the principal of Sauber/Audi. He didn’t last a full year in this role, as the press release stated he left Audi “for personal reasons and with immediate effect”. The German team announced that Mattia Binotto will remain in his role as head of the entire Audi Formula 1 project and will additionally take on the team principal duties vacated by Wheatley. Audi will establish the management structure of its F1 team in the future, as they are still adapting to this sport. The goal remains to fight for the world championship from 2030 onwards.
Audi started the 2026 season very well, the performance of their car and engine are better than expected. Therefore, the departure of the team principal after just two races is a huge surprise. The media agree: the reason for Wheatley’s departure is not personal reasons, but an offer to become Aston Martin’s team principal. This has not been confirmed yet, as he will certainly have to wait a few months due to his gardening leave period. For several days, reports have been circulating that Adrian Newey will bring his old acquaintance to him, with Wheatley relieving him of team principal duties, and Newey returning to focusing solely on the car project.
Two more rumors appeared in the media. The first says that Wheatley and Binotto didn’t quite get along, and the division of responsibilities between them was not entirely clear. This could be another reason for such a quick job change. There are also reports that “personal reasons” is not a made-up explanation, but something changed in Wheatley’s family life and he wants to return to living and working in Great Britain.
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Audi will certainly lose out, as Jonathan Wheatley is an extremely experienced person who, after so many years at Red Bull, knew well how an F1 team should function to achieve success. We’ll see if Audi makes a transfer in his place in the coming weeks.
Aston Martin is to have a new principal, but not yet
At the end of the day, Aston Martin posted a special statement from Lawrence Stroll. Stroll decided to clarify media rumors about leadership in his team. Adrian Newey is his partner and important shareholder, remaining in the position of “Managing Technical Partner” (more important than technical director). Aston Martin operates differently, currently they don’t have a person who holds the typical role of team principal, but this is intentional. The team regularly receives offers from senior directors from other teams who want to join them. The team will not comment on rumors.
Stroll’s statement was strange and very firm, but actually nothing comes from it. Unless he thought the media was suggesting Adrian Newey’s removal. The Briton took on more power at Aston Martin in November 2025, when the previous CEO and principal Andy Cowell was moved to handle cooperation with Honda. Cowell apparently spends most of his time in Japan recently. I don’t expect a person of his caliber to last long in such a junior position. Adrian Newey took on additional responsibilities, as he said at the end of 2025 “I will be present at the first races of the new season anyway”. It turned out he was only in Australia, when during media conversations he blamed Honda for everything, which certainly was not well received in Japan. He missed the Chinese Grand Prix, when other people replaced him in the role of team principal on track. It is known that Aston Martin will soon hire a team principal, as they must have someone in such a position. Adrian Newey will then focus only on car development.
According to media reports, Jonathan Wheatley will become the new principal, whom Newey highly values and who brought him in. The matter is not yet to be formalized, hence the lack of announcement. According to recent rumors, Aston Martin contacted three potential candidates: Gianpiero Lambiase, Andreas Seidl, and Jonathan Wheatley. According to BBC, earlier this week Lawrence Stroll spoke with Christian Horner, but Newey is said to be opposed to this candidacy. Negotiations with Audi are probably currently underway regarding when Wheatley can join Aston Martin. Audi, in my opinion, has no interest in shortening this period, after all Wheatley fled from them after less than a year. Therefore, negotiations here could be difficult and costly for Aston Martin.
Aston Martin has brought in many “principals” in recent years, each of them had to be offered a high salary. Salaries of only the three highest-paid employees don’t count towards the budget limit, so now their budget is certainly heavily burdened by these salaries. They will figure out how to do it as they did before with Martin Whitmarsh, whom they formally moved to activities unrelated to F1 so his salary wouldn’t burden the budget. However, there are limits. I expect that after such a poor start to the season, there will be personnel changes in the team, including layoffs.
Summary
Lord’s promotion at Mercedes doesn’t really change anything in this team. Wheatley’s departure from Audi is a big loss for this team, we’ll see if they replace him in the future. At Aston Martin, I expect bigger personnel rotations this year, not just bringing in Wheatley, but that’s still ahead of us. Currently Honda and the team are working on improving the entire package, but if results don’t appear quickly, Stroll and Newey will be forced to make bigger changes.
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