F1 pundit slams Aston Martin's 'embarrassing' 2026 start amid Wheatley links
Photo: Race Pictures
08:01, 22 Apr
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Henry Eccles is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs, and features across the F1 calendar. Since joining in 2026, he has produced high-volume reporting on the sport’s biggest stories, alongside feature pieces including analysis and historical content.
Former F1 driver and Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok has heavily criticised Aston Martin's poor start to the 2026 season, labelling the Silverstone-based team's pace deficit as "embarrassing."
Aston Martin's opening three rounds of 2026 have been plagued by extreme power unit vibrations coming from the Honda-supplied engine, with only one full race distance covered in the AMR26 thanks to Fernando Alonso's P18 finish last time out at Suzuka.
The team in green find themselves dead-last in the Constructors' standings, after coming into the campaign no doubt buoyed by the prospect of legendary designer and now-team principal Adrian Newey working with Honda yet again - a duo that won six world titles at Red Bull.
But after a nightmare start to the new season, rumours have swirled that Aston Martin could look to appoint former Audi boss Jonathan Wheatley as team principal, with Newey taking a step back to focus on solely technical matters.
As GPblog have reported, however, an Aston Martin move for Wheatley may not be so straightforward - nonetheless, former HRT driver Chandhok explains why their issues go beyond the team principal role.
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Wheatley deserves the right move, says Chandhok
Photo: Race Pictures
Speaking on Sky Sports' F1 Show, Chandhok shared his thoughts on why noise around the move has quietened down, with Wheatley just having left his role at Audi just prior to the Japanese GP.
Chandhok said: "It sounds like there’s a bit of limbo.
“There are certainly some rumours around Aston Martin, between China and Japan. It just seemed like an obvious thing because Adrian was filling that role as a somewhat interim position.
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“But clearly it’s not a done deal. If it was, it would have been announced. I think there’s still a lot of movement going on in where Jonathan lands."
Chandhok backed the Briton for a quick F1 return, but notes that it has to be the right move for the former Red Bull sporting director.
"What I’m fairly confident is that we haven’t seen the last of Jonathan Wheatley in the paddock. He’s an absolute paddock lifer. He’s been there since the early ’90s. He’s not done with Formula 1.
"So, it won’t be long before he reemerges, but I think the challenge is, will he now reemerge and find a position of seniority that he thinks is deserving of his recent past because he’s now been team principal."
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'Embarrassing' Aston Martin need more than Wheatley
Chandhok's focus quickly turned to Aston Martin's performances, with the Sky pundit suggesting that the British team need more than just Wheatley's potential arrival to turn their fortunes around.
“It’s quite hard to take a step down from that, isn’t it? You’ve been in the top job, and there are only 11 of them on the grid. How does that work? Honestly though, Aston, they’ve got bigger problems than the team principal.
“They’ve been… disappointing is not the word, is it? It’s just been embarrassing how far off the pace that whole package has been due to the issues from the Honda side, of course.
“I think the team principal is the least of the issues. They need somebody to resolve the technical issue, and I don’t think Jonathan’s necessarily the person for that.
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"They need engine people sitting in Sakura to try and dig them out of this hole.”
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