Our verdict on Aston Martin trying to poach Audi's F1 team boss
It would seem Adrian Newey wants to offload the 'team principal' aspect of his new 2026 F1 job role ASAP - and so Aston Martin is reportedly back in the market searching for someone to backfill that position. Audi's Jonathan Wheatley (not quite one full year into that organisation) has emerged as the number one target, but is he the right man for the job, is there a better candidate Lawrence Strol...
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It would seem Adrian Newey wants to offload the 'team principal' aspect of his new 2026 F1 job role ASAP - and so Aston Martin is reportedly back in the market searching for someone to backfill that position. Audi's Jonathan Wheatley (not quite one full year into that organisation) has emerged as the number one target, but is he the right man for the job, is there a better candidate Lawrence Strol...
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Our verdict on Aston Martin trying to poach Audi's F1 team boss
Our experts give their takes on Aston Martin as it searches for yet another team boss and is reportedly targeting Audi's Jonathan Wheatley
Max Verstappen has often said he's in Formula 1 for a good time rather than a long time, and he's hardly been having much of a good time in 2026 so far.Whether it be his demolition of these "anti-racing" cars when they debuted in pre-season testing, his even bigger, incendiary rant about the quality of the racing after retiring from the Chinese GP, or Red Bull's own dip into F1's midfield there, i...
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Aston Martin wants to hire a new Formula 1 team principal so Adrian Newey can focus solely on technical matters, and has targeted Audi’s Jonathan Wheatley.Newey joined Aston Martin as its managing technical partner early last year. He is a team shareholder and effectively the most senior figure within the organisation after team chairman Lawrence Stroll.In late 2025, Newey assumed the team princip...
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The opening races of the 2026 Formula 1 season have shown that the winter rumours about the advantage of the Mercedes power unit were well-founded.The works Mercedes team, in particular, has also shown an advantage in the electrical management of the engine, something that its customer teams, McLaren, Alpine and Williams, have not yet fully mastered.Major manufacturers are holding a predictable ad...
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In the polarised debates about Formula 1 2026's racing style, there's a point which those bemoaning its artificiality probably need to accept: no matter what tweaks to the technical regulations that are made later this season or into 2027, F1 is not about to willingly surrender the dramatic wheel-to-wheel dices the new rules have facilitated.It's just too spectacular, too viscerally exciting, too ...
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McLaren's Formula 1 title defence has started miserably, but it's facing bigger problems than simply the embarrassment of having to withdraw both its cars before the start of the Chinese Grand Prix.It appears that galling double did-not-start was down to two different failures on the same component of its customer Mercedes power unit."This is an area of the car which is not under McLaren's control...
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After every Formula 1 round, Edd Straw ranks the performances of all 22 drivers across the entire race weekend, as he did for the Chinese Grand Prix. Those of you in The Race Members' Club can ask him questions about his rankings and a special Q&A is released shortly afterwards, but for the first time after China, we opened up driver rankings to the Champions tier of The Race Members' Club!So here...
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Ferrari has proved to be one of the most innovative Formula 1 teams this year when it comes to aerodynamic developments.It caused a stir in pre-season testing when its SF-26 appeared with a unique exhaust wing, exploiting a design choice with its gearbox and rear crash structure to fit an extra winglet that improves airflow around the diffuser area.Then it revealed its flipping rear wing, which ro...
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Mercedes is bracing itself for the "political knives" to come out as rivals work to wipe out its current advantage in Formula 1.The team has made a near-perfect start to the new rules era, with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli winning the first two grands prix of the season in Australia and China.The back-to-back successes have left competitors in no doubt that Mercedes is the team to beat, and t...
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While Kimi Antonelli led George Russell in another Mercedes 1-2 up front, the state of what was going on further back was also pretty revealing during Formula 1's Chinese Grand Prix weekend.Here are our key takeaways from Shanghai:McLaren's title defence is collapsing alreadyNo defending champion has scored fewer points in the opening two rounds (excluding sprints) of an F1 season since the points...
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Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur believes his team will be allowed to introduce an upgraded power unit this year as part of Formula 1’s regulations aimed at closing the field up.The Maranello squad has emerged as Mercedes’ closest challenger so far in 2026, but is under no illusions that it has a deficit of around half a second.Key to closing that gap down will be upgrades to car and engine, but matters ...
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Audi Formula 1 development driver Freddie Slater will drive for Andretti in the forthcoming Formula E rookie test at Jarama.The Race can reveal that the 17-year-old will drive Jake Dennis’ car at the test, as current Trident Formula 3 driver Slater undertakes his first miles in a Formula E Gen3 Evo car.Slater will get a six-hour window of running at the test, which is an annual fixture in Formula ...
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Is a first-time grand prix victory enough for Kimi Antonelli to top Edd Straw's Formula 1 driver rankings from the Chinese Grand Prix?Below you'll find Edd's verdict on all 22 drivers from best to worst. How do the rankings work? The 22 drivers will be ranked in order of performance from best to worst on each grand prix weekend. This will be based on the full range of criteria, ranging from pace a...
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Ferrari removed its new halo mini wings over Formula 1's Chinese Grand Prix weekend in the wake of discussions with the FIA, The Race has learned.While the new design had run in practice and passed scrutineering for the sprint element at Shanghai, it was taken off the cars on Saturday.This followed questions from the governing body on Ferrari's regulatory interpretation that left the squad feeling...
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Max Verstappen's biggest attack on Formula 1 2026 yet after the Chinese Grand Prix included a big swipe at anyone who likes the kind of racing in the process.What winds Verstappen up about the new rules seems to get under his skin regardless of what actually happens in the race, though.Verstappen's made his disdain for the 2026 rules very obvious for a long time and his vocal criticism shows no si...
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Formula 1 is to now hold fire on making any major changes to the 2026 rules until at least the Miami Grand Prix, The Race has learned.The move comes with series bosses and teams seeing no need to rush through modifications right now based on a fresh perspective of the regulations over the Chinese GP weekend.It emerged ahead of the start of the season that the FIA and FOM had scheduled a post-Shang...
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Has Red Bull’s “horror show” at Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix amplified Max Verstappen’s hatred of the 2026 regulations?Verstappen launched his biggest attack yet on these cars, lambasting the “terrible” racing they create after retiring from the Chinese GP.He said: “If someone likes this, then you really don’t know what racing is like”. He also inisted he'd say the same if he was winning because...
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A first-time race winner, a glut of catastrophic unreliability and plenty of back and forth wheel-to-wheel action means there's a lot to unpick in our selection of the stars and flops from F1's second race of 2026. Loser: McLaren (Double DNS) McLaren didn’t look like it had the pace to get in among the Mercedes/Ferrari battle at the front before the race, but we never found out because of its disa...
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Four-time Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen has launched his most inflammatory broadside yet against the "terrible" racing created by the 2026 rules in the aftermath of the Chinese Grand Prix.The most prominent critic of these regulations, Verstappen appeared slightly more reconciliatory earlier in the Shanghai weekend - but was highly critical again in the immediate aftermath of the Sunday race, ...
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The 2026 Chinese Grand Prix produced a Formula 1 podium that will be remembered for quite some time. But what should we take from Kimi Antonelli's first race win, Lewis Hamilton's first grand prix podium with Ferrari and a frenetic race? Here's what our team thinks...'Proper' Antonelli win was needed as Mercedes looks scaryScott Mitchell-MalmIt was frightening to see just how much pace the Mercede...
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