Rumors around Wheatley are mounting: what's going on at Aston Martin?

An interesting weekend awaits Formula 1 in Suzuka. Will Jonathan Wheatley be 'simply' on Audi’s pit wall in Japan, as if there are no rumors at all about a potential switch to Aston Martin?

For now, the expectation is that everything will proceed as normal at the German outfit, where Wheatley only started a year ago. According to GPblog's information, a possible move by the Brit to Aston Martin as the new team principal is far from a done deal, even though there is interest in the services of the former Red Bull Racing sporting director.

Is Aston Martin then looking around for a new team boss to replace Adrian Newey? It’s important to know that Newey said last season in Qatar that he could take over Andy Cowell’s role as team principal, since he was already planning to attend a number of Grands Prix in the first months of 2026.

That way he could combine his technical role with running the team. At times, like last week in China, when Newey was absent, he worked remotely and Mike Krack was the point of contact at the circuit.

Although it wasn’t said outright, Newey’s words suggested that at some point he would step back into relative anonymity to focus solely on technical matters. No timeline was mentioned. That could therefore also be as late as 2027.

No doubt part of this is that Aston Martin must first find a replacement, someone who is also available. In Formula 1, it is very common for an employee moving from one team to another to be placed on so-called gardening leave before they can start elsewhere. Especially in the case of a team principal, it cannot be ruled out that a person would have to sit a year out in between two separate jobs.

Aston Martin is currently scouring the market for Newey’s successor, no matter when that person may start. If the team draws up a list of suitable candidates, Wheatley is on it, GPblog understands. Ultimately, Aston Martin’s co-owners, Adrian Newey and Lawrence Stroll, will decide together who is appointed.

It is therefore premature to say that Wheatley’s transfer is a done deal, let alone that he will be running Aston Martin within a few weeks. That the Brit is on the team's radar, however, is clear.