Drifting before you’ve crossed the line - like it
Good race, enjoyed that. Pleased for Kimi, pleased for Hamilton (and Charles, enjoyed the race between them). Too many non-starteres/retirements though.
RASH PREDICTION ALERT!!!
Max will retire at the end of this season if the Red Bull doesn't improve dramatically - as...
a) Mercedes don't have a place for him.
b) Ferrari don't have a place for him.
c) McLaren don't have a place for him.
d) The Aston dream team - well, erm!!! 😬
The teams are within the rules, rules that have resulted in repeated instances of cars getting dangerously bogged down. If you’ve forgotten why that’s dangerous, just have a look at today’s Porsche Cup race.
You mean the drivers haven’t got their starts right and managed their engines. They are only on ice power upto 50kph so it’s all down to simple revs and clutch control for the 1st phase of the start
So Max says "if you enjoy this you don't understand racing", Lewis and Charles say "I really enjoyed that race" so who's wrong?
Well, I enjoyed that race. I don't care what other people say.
There is literally no way verstappen is walking away from F1 money just to throw his toys out of the pram. He can go and dominate other series when he's old, he's not going to risk leaving F1 and there not being a seat available when he wants to return... Surely!?
Otherwise, I think the new regs have been fun so far, they at least distill down into highlights well
There is literally no way verstappen is walking away from F1 money
I know we are all wired differently, but surely $200,000,000 in the bank enables you to spend the rest of your life making decisions that make you happy rather than if they are a nice little earner.
There is literally no way verstappen is walking away from F1 money
I know we are all wired differently, but surely $200,000,000 in the bank enables you to spend the rest of your life making decisions that make you happy rather than if they are a nice little earner.
nico rosberg walked away.
There is literally no way verstappen is walking away from F1 money just to throw his toys out of the pram. He can go and dominate other series when he's old, he's not going to risk leaving F1 and there not being a seat available when he wants to return... Surely!?
My money is on Max taking a seat at Merc next year, not for the money but because he likes winning and Merc have the best engine and best car.
I can’t see Max moving to Merc. Toto has two good drivers and a dominant car, he no longer has any need for Max when they’re just phoning in one-twos. And Max hates these cars, he hates the whole formula. Toto gains nothing by paying a huge additional premium on driver salary, he just gets someone who will complain about the cars and will also complain about at least one of the two guys who would potentially be his teammate. I’d say Max has found himself kind of Fernandoed into a corner in a way, but I don’t think that matters to him or anyone else, he just hates the cars and my money’s on him walking away.
Still… that Ferrari battle. 10/10. Every bit as good as Bahrain 2014. Anyone complaining about the rules needs to realise that once the cars converge on performance, that’s what’s possible.
I can’t see Max moving to Merc. Toto has two good drivers and a dominant car, he no longer has any need for Max when they’re just phoning in one-twos.
That may not be the case for next year. Russell and Antonelli both seem to be top-level drivers, but Max is a generational talent and he can make the difference in a tight championship race. I wouldn't be surprised if Max did walk away next year, but I would expect Merc to boot Antonelli and slot in Max if he was interested in the seat.
I can’t see Max moving to Merc. Toto has two good drivers and a dominant car, he no longer has any need for Max when they’re just phoning in one-twos.
That may not be the case for next year. Russell and Antonelli both seem to be top-level drivers, but Max is a generational talent and he can make the difference in a tight championship race. I wouldn't be surprised if Max did walk away next year, but I would expect Merc to boot Antonelli and slot in Max if he was interested in the seat.
Whose to say Russell wouldn't get the boot, he and Verstappen do have previous form. Plus as Toto said Antonelli is beginning to evolve as a driver.
"nico rosberg walked away."
He was a broken man at the end of 2016.
Whose to say Russell wouldn't get the boot, he and Verstappen do have previous form.
Surely no British team would fire a British driver who is challenging for the world title in order to hire a non-British driver.
Can you imagine the tantrums with max and George in the same team. It’s bad enough listening to their constant moaning now
I can’t see Max moving to Merc.
Me either, I can see him walking away to do a multi-hour sports car series, it seems to be something he enjoys.
The smile on LeClerc's face after finishing 4th said it all. He was having a ball out there with Hamilton. Plenty of scrapping further down the field too.
I think a few tweaks on deployment / harvesting at energy poor tracks is all that is needed to make the new rules regularly deliver good racing.
Is it just me or are the time gaps massive at the end of the race? They seem much worse than last year.
The second Red Bull seat has always been a poisoned chalice.
Now it's Max struggling he should instantly leave? Why not fire him like they did the last 6-8 bums in that seat?
And the thought of Toto paying his salary to replace two drivers who he has developed would be a hard sell for the board.
It's a pity LH can't get his 8th championship and gracefully retire but he looks like he has a spring in his step actually competing for a change.
Is it just me or are the time gaps massive at the end of the race? They seem much worse than last year.
Gaps are always a lot closer at the end of a regulation cycle.
I’d say Max has found himself kind of Fernandoed into a corner i
Can I congratulate you on the term "Fernandoed into a corner" - a combination of behaviour and decisions (not necessarily by the individual) that results in the exclusion of all more favourable options.
Oh, and I guess I have to eat my words on saying that the cars still seem like they’d be crappy to drive regardless of how the action looks from the outside. When two of the best wheel-to-wheel racers on the grid get out of the car grinning like two kids who’ve just finished their first race in a proper racing kart, they clearly can’t be that bad.
And the thought of Toto paying his salary to replace two drivers who he has developed would be a hard sell for the board.
Sponsors would pay top dollar to have Max in the car. Driver salaries are outside the budget cap so it's worth paying an extra 50 million to have a driver who wrings every last drop of performance out of the car.
Lewis Hamilton - after Chinese GP.
"The cars are easier to follow, you can get very close. There's no a bad wake where you're losing too much down-force. I think it's the best racing I've ever experienced in Formula 1"
it's worth paying an extra 50 million to have a driver who wrings every last drop of performance out of the car.
Normally yes, but when you’ve got a 19 year old in his second season winning races something like 25 seconds ahead of the nearest non-Mercedes, that 50 million isn’t likely to buy you better results, at least in the short term.
Obviously if by the end of the season Mercedes isn’t constantly winning or one of its drivers is dropping the ball here and there—both of which are reasonably likely—then we’re back to the usual state of, yes, you pay to get the best driver in the car. Though to be honest I think some TPs lean more to stability and building a foundation to their driver line up (Toto being maybe the prime example) while others (Horner, Briatore) will take whatever risk and volatility is involved with getting the fastest individual talent at any given time.
I just think from inside Max’s head this looks like a bit of a crossroads rather than simply a case of rocking up at Toto’s door with a fountain pen to phone in another couple of championships. Had he chosen, or been able, to jump into Hamilton’s seat a year ago, it would (unsurprisingly) be totally different and we’d be looking at Max on his way to seven or eight titles and undisputed Goat status. That’s Max’s “Sliding Fernando Doors” moment.
Toto was very keen to get Verstappen before, so I’d say it’s likely that he is now
Toto was very keen to get Verstappen before…
…he signed Antonelli.
Replacing Antonelli with Verstappen means (a) he pisses Russell right off and risks losing him, when he’s the team leader, undoubtedly one of the best on the grid, and likely the next WDC, and (b) loses his investment in the future of the team, replacing him with someone who’s very vocal about disliking the current formula and wanting to try other things.
Replacing Russell with Verstappen is less of a tinderbox, but it’s still pretty disruptive and doesn’t solve the problem of Max simply being a flight risk, at which point you’ve lost the guy that looks like a sound bet to bring home the silverware if and when Max calls it a day.
I just don’t think that, now we are where we are, that’s the sort of thing that Toto would—seemingly unnecessarily—roll the dice on.
But like I say, I don’t think it’s so much Toto as Max that makes it an unlikely move right now.
I agree, there's no upsides (ATM) for Toto to sign Verstappen, and loads of potential downsides.
Toto replaced a seven time world champion (and career long Mercedes driver) for Antonelli. Lewis could see the writing was on the wall for him.
This is from Planet F1 today...
Max Verstappen is being driven away from F1
Why were so many people urging Max Verstappen to make the move to Mercedes last year? Precisely for weekends like this.
It was obvious three years ago that Max would be no fan of the 2026 rules, but a competitive car would have at least made them easier for him to stomach.
He doesn’t even have that right now as the optimism surrounding Red Bull in pre-season testing has drained away over the first two weekends of the new season.
Of the world champions of the modern era, only Jenson Button in 2009 had the good sense to see his team’s dip coming and get out of there before it arrived.
An act of disloyalty it might have been, yet jumping from one stone to the next at the opportune moment is often necessary – sometimes to be encouraged – in a sport in which the sands shift every few years.
There was hope last summer that Verstappen might have learned from the tragedy of Sebastian Vettel, who stuck with Red Bull for a set of new engine regulations and promptly went off the edge of the cliff with the team in 2014.
Max’s performance clause, you say?
Wouldn’t have mattered. Contracts are made to broken and, at that level, the driver invariably gets what the driver wants.
And if Max wanted to drive a Mercedes in 2026, what was Red Bull going to do about it?
But, no, Verstappen ended up staying…
… And look where he is now: a second off the pace in qualifying; 47 behind the leader when he was called in to retire; staring down the barrel of the wasted year Jos should have been telling him to avoid at all costs.
He hates the rules. Found the car undriveable here. Setup changes didn’t help. Every lap is survival. Can’t push because the car won’t let him.
Oh, and did he mention that he hates the rules?
With Aston Martin’s current woes taking that team out of serious contention for his signature for now, there remains a widespread assumption that there will be a Mercedes seat waiting for him whenever Max says the word.
Indeed, his upcoming Nurburgring 24 hours appearance behind the wheel of a Red Bull-branded Mercedes, announced a day after the Australian Grand Prix, has been regarded as the latest evidence of the burgeoning relationship between the two parties.
Yet what need would Mercedes have for Verstappen on the back of a successful 2026 if George Russell and Kimi Antonelli prove themselves capable of identical results in a dominant car?
What reason would there be to throw all that away – all the time and resource spent nurturing Russell and Antonelli to this point – just for Max, his eye-watering salary and the indisputable political edge brought to a team by the Verstappen camp?
This is why the perfect time for Max to make the move was last year when those lingering doubts about Russell and his world championship credentials were still alive.
And if he’s disillusioned by the new rules, takes zero joy from the act of driving the car and has no chance of winning anyway, what exactly is left to keep him around?
For the first time, now you can see how a sabbatical – taking a couple of years out to fulfil his dreams in endurance racing, leaving the door open to an F1 return when the regulations revert to something more palatable – could become the most appealing option available to him.
The next set of rules might not be designed to enhance the racing spectacle or tempt more manufacturers in, but simply to bring Max back.
A word of advice before F1 returns to Suzuka, the scene of one of Verstappen’s greatest feats of 2025, next weekend: cherish him while he’s still here.
It might not be for as long as you think.
Well… yup, all of that, basically 🙂
So Max says "if you enjoy this you don't understand racing", Lewis and Charles say "I really enjoyed that race" so who's wrong?
So we can have clean, hard, multi-corner, multi-lap battles or we can have you doing a DRS divebomb to the apex and forcing people off at the exit...hmm I just don't know which one to plump for. 😂
Yeah it's 'fake' but so what!
I just think it would benefit from being simplified. The boost and overtake modes and the charge per lap do feel a bit Mario Kart. Without having thought too long and hard about the potential downsides and complications, I wish it were simply a case of specifying a maximum capacity and/or power rating for the battery and letting teams take different approach as to when and how to harvest and deploy it. If we’re looking for road relevance then that can get closet; if we’re looking for ease of viewers’ understanding then it’s simpler; if we’re looking to draw people in with technical interest then there’s more to talk about. And from a racing point of view I don’t actually think there’s a problem with making energy harvesting/deployment tactics part of a driver’s (and team’s) skill set. It’s not a million miles from tactics like forcing defensive moves through a series of corners to line up a move at the next one. Some people are always going to hate it because it isn’t just a case of burning as much dinosaur juice as possible, but screw them.
That's perhaps the most sensible comment I've yet seen on these new regulations.
Why were so many people urging Max Verstappen to make the move to Mercedes last year? Precisely for weekends like this.
It was obvious three years ago that Max would be no fan of the 2026 rules, but a competitive car would have at least made them easier for him to stomach.
He doesn’t even have that right now as the optimism surrounding Red Bull in pre-season testing has drained away over the first two weekends of the new season.
Of the world champions of the modern era, only Jenson Button in 2009 had the good sense to see his team’s dip coming and get out of there before it arrived.
An act of disloyalty it might have been, yet jumping from one stone to the next at the opportune moment is often necessary – sometimes to be encouraged – in a sport in which the sands shift every few years.
A year ago we didn't know that the Merc would be so dominant, they struggled badly with the ground effect rules and McLaren looked untouchable. Then Red Bull kept developing their car and the driver's championship ended up being quite close. The smartest thing for Max to do was to stay where he was and wait to see who did a good job on the new regs.
Having said that, all the teams will turn up at Miami with big upgrades, plus they will all improve deployment/harvesting strategies, so it's a bit early to declare that Merc will dominate like they did a decade ago. However, if Red Bull don't show big improvement by mid-year, hard to see Max staying there so a Merc seat seems the only thing that would keep him in the sport.
A year ago we didn't know that the Merc would be so dominant, they struggled badly with the ground effect rules and McLaren looked untouchable. Then Red Bull kept developing their car and the driver's championship ended up being quite close. The smartest thing for Max to do was to stay where he was and wait to see who did a good job on the new regs.
I think the quoted article fails to acknowledge the benefit of hindsight: Button may well have predicted that McLaren were going to be a better bet than Brawn/Mercedes for 2010, but that probably wasn’t all that hard. Others’ futures were harder to anticipate: at the other end of the fortune-telling spectrum you have Alonso, who seems to be perennially cursed with his tea leaves turning to shit, but—unless he’s actually instrumental in making everything fail—few if any of his decisions looked dumb at the time, they just tanked once he’d committed to them. Which is a little analogous to where Max is: staying where he was wasn’t necessarily a rationally bad idea at the time (though I think it was clear that once ground effect—the one thing that Mercedes really failed to master—was gone and the PU became the dominant factor, Mercedes were at least pretty certain to be back fighting for regular wins), but right now he’s in a Fernando-shaped hole: not only is he committed to driving a shitbox but he’s also less needed at any teams with better cars, so has no clear rote to winning. Other than taking the escape hatch and going outside F1.
The smartest thing for Max to do was to stay where he was and wait to see who did a good job on the new regs.
Having forced the sacking of Horner, it would've made zero sense to then leave Red Bull. This is what the Verstappens wanted.
I get the arguments why he would leave but I think it ignores that the whole world of F1 is centred around status and money. Sure he's got more than enough but that's not the point to people in that world. And leaving at a time when a driver still considers themselves to be the best is very different to leaving having had a decent career and coming down the other side of one's peak. He's a (somewhat) household name and that would never have been possible by only driving in WEC. Maybe he could be the first to make it work but to me it's accepting defeat.
I just think it would benefit from being simplified. The boost and overtake modes and the charge per lap do feel a bit Mario Kart.
For those like me who were confused, in very simple terms:
Overtake mode = replacement for DRS = gives the car a higher top speed AND more energy recovery to allow them to attack
Boost = replacement for 'KERS' button we've had since 2009 = maximum power at any time to attack or defend
The other reason why I was confused was "if boost already gives maximum power at any time, how does overtake mode have a higher top speed?" and the answer is that the deployment on normal or boost mode drops off after 290 KM/H, whereas in overtake mode it doesn't drop off until 335 KM/H (and it tapers off more slowly).
Having seen it in action, I don't really think it's that different to the old tactical play we had (e.g. slowing down before the DRS detection line).
Still not a fan of the 'slow' high-speed cornering in quali though!!
I get the arguments why he would leave but I think it ignores that the whole world of F1 is centred around status and money.
Max has always said he's not in F1 for the long term. He doesn't want to be doing it in his 40s like Lewis and Fernando.
to me it's accepting defeat.
That would make sense if he’d toiled away for a decade without getting a title, but he’s got four and has proven everything he needs to prove along the way. I’d say it’s more like accepting that his work here is done. Pretty safe bet that that’s how Max would see it.
The only reason max doesn’t like these rules is because redbull have designed a poor car. If he was winning then he would be happy. All that is happening at the moment is that it’s becoming clear is that max can’t out drive a bad car
The only reason max doesn’t like these rules is because redbull have designed a poor car.
You can be sure that if that was the reason then Max would be saying plainly that Red Bull have designed a poor car. If Max is saying he hates an energy management formula then you can be sure that what he hates is an energy management formula. He may be a lot of things, but cryptic is not one of those things.
Thought experiment:
The 2026 regs are coming. It’s clear that the PU is key to success. So you put as much resource as possible into developing the best engine in the field. Right? Everyone will do that. Best engine wins, assuming the chassis and aero are good.
But: the 2026 regs are coming. It’s clear that the PU you build is the PU you’re using for a few years. So if you don’t have the strongest engine at the start, you’re possibly locked out of wins for several seasons.
If only there was a way to be able to continue developing a PU when your competitors can’t. If only the FIA gave you that opportunity.
Except, of course, they did.
So if you could build the best engine you could, knowing everyone was likely to end up around the same ballpark, but then peg it back a bit, you could maybe sacrifice the first few races and get two, maybe four, upgrade opportunities and be able to leapfrog the people who started with the most horsepower.
Maybe building a great engine that wasn’t quite at crazy limits might ensure it was reliable, and then maybe if you designed a small turbo that added less icing onto the horsepower cake, that would be just enough to bag you the upgrades while also providing other advantages. It would buy you months in which to continue development, meaning that if you could just stay in the hunt for a few races then you might be top dog for the rest of the season, and you’d be sure of taking another step further for the following season.
I mean, I’m 99.9% sure that’s not what Ferrari have done. I can’t do the simulation to know whether you could aim for 98% of optimal with enough confidence of still being near the front—and that’s before you even know for sure what 100% of optimal is. But they did their homework on the PU for sure. They’ve found loopholes for the inverted wing, the exhaust winglet and the halo winglets. They’re on it. Could it be a diabolically clever tactic? The loophole of all loopholes? It’s a cute idea.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/ferrari-thinks-its-2026-f1-engine-will-be-allowed-upgrade-boost/
You must think Honda are even bigger geniuses! 😉
The problem with Max leaving F1 is that he won’t be able to threaten to leave F1 anymore.
He’s just one of those sorts of people that says something is crap if it will make him look better or increase his chances of getting something he wants. Most drivers love to play mind games as a way to get an advantage, and that’s one of his
The only reason max doesn’t like these rules is because redbull have designed a poor car.
You can be sure that if that was the reason then Max would be saying plainly that Red Bull have designed a poor car. If Max is saying he hates an energy management formula then you can be sure that what he hates is an energy management formula. He may be a lot of things, but cryptic is not one of those things.
But they clearly have built a relatively poor car and Max isn’t happy so is spending every opportunity he can to complain whilst not directly annoying his employer. Wait til his dad joins in
I like the Bez conspiracy theory that Ferrari realised that they weren't going to develop the brilliant engine they wanted, so they did the 'brake before the DRS line' and released an underpowered one, knowing that they would then be able to put the full power one when that is development. Not sure it's true, but really want it to be.
I think Max may well actually leave F1, not switch to Mercedes. I don't think there's a place there, but possibly WEC; he said he's interested in it. Maybe for a year or two and then come back to whoever is dominant in 2028/9.
I like the @Bez theory. I don't think it's true - of all the teams, I reckon Ferrari are perhaps the least capable of pulling off this sort of fandango, but if they do manage to develop the engine to the point of matching Mercedes, it'll be a great season.
Yeah, great theory but Ferrari and "smart strategic thinking" don't often go together.
I'm skeptical that teams would try cute tricks around engine upgrades. Ferrari have apparently gone for a smaller turbo, which means less lag and faster response out of corners, but at the expense of top-end power. That may have been a mistake, but I struggle to believe that they would have deliberately hobbled their engine in the hope of getting an upgrade later.
To me, the smartest strategy with these engines is to push for maximum performance and not worry about reliability, then seek development to improve reliability. The reliability developments will allow the engine to be run harder so will end up giving a boost in the usable power.
Well yeah, don’t get me wrong, I did say I’d be 99.9% sure it wasn’t intentional, and I’d say that’s an underestimate 🙂 but it did strike me as an audacious loophole that hadn’t previously occurred to me: dropping 20bhp for the first six races buys you another full year of PU development.
But, apart from being antithetical to how competitive engineering operates, I suspect few people anticipated just how large the gap would be between Mercedes and its customer teams, so playing for the ADUO would have likely looked like starting the season deep in the midfield, and there’s no way Ferrari would have taken that risk. Never mind the risk of ending up 1.9% behind the Mercedes and being completely stuffed.
Honda are halfway there
They've doubled down on upgrade strategy - crap performance and crap reliability. Plus, running at the back of the field gets them more aero development time to develop next year's car. My money's on Alonso leaving in a huff, Perez taking back the seat, the 2027 car being the class of the field and Perez beating Stroll to the driver's title.
Honda are halfway there
They've doubled down on upgrade strategy - crap performance and crap reliability. Plus, running at the back of the field gets them more aero development time to develop next year's car. My money's on Alonso leaving in a huff, Perez taking back the seat, the 2027 car being the class of the field and Perez beating Stroll to the driver's title.
Shouldn't you add that Alonso goes to Mercedes just as the Mercedes team implodes dynamically for 2027, and they have an absolute lemon of a car for the rest of Alonso's career?
Looks like Ferrari have already started putting some chips on the ADUO…
”Ferrari is known to believe Mercedes is holding back part of its engine's potential in order to keep Ferrari below the 2% threshold and prevent the upgrade system from kicking in … At Maranello, work is reportedly underway on a new internal combustion engine specification“
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/does-ferrari-think-mercedes-hiding-something-f1-engine/
Looks like Ferrari have already started putting some chips on the ADUO…
”Ferrari is known to believe Mercedes is holding back part of its engine's potential in order to keep Ferrari below the 2% threshold and prevent the upgrade system from kicking in … At Maranello, work is reportedly underway on a new internal combustion engine specification“
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/does-ferrari-think-mercedes-hiding-something-f1-engine/
Can't Mercedes just point at McLaren and say, "Look, the engine's shit in their team?". They claim they're not more than 2% better, and it's all down to the skillful driving of their drivers.
At Maranello, work is reportedly underway on a new internal combustion engine specification“
I assumed that all the engine manufacturers would keep developing their engine specifications anyway so that they have something ready if they do get an upgrade allowance in the future. Plus, they would run a "reliability" upgrade program anyway - even if they didn't improve the peak power, having more durable engines means they can run them harder and are less likely to get penalties for exceeding the permitted number of engines per season.
I confess I’ve not read anything that makes it clear what’s in-scope for PU development outside of the ADUO. It would seem odd if PU work largely dried up for any top-performing manufacturers.
At Maranello, work is reportedly underway on a new internal combustion engine specification“
I assumed that all the engine manufacturers would keep developing their engine specifications anyway so that they have something ready if they do get an upgrade allowance in the future. Plus, they would run a "reliability" upgrade program anyway - even if they didn't improve the peak power, having more durable engines means they can run them harder and are less likely to get penalties for exceeding the permitted number of engines per season.
Most PU providers are working on upgrades for their current PU, the rumour that's been going around is that Ferrari are working on an entirely new PU, the one they are currently running being an evolution of the previous one but without the MGUH.
Yeah, great theory but Ferrari and "smart strategic thinking" don't often go together.
"Wait, we are checking"
"Plan C, D or F"
Newey to step down as Aston Martin F1 team principal, Wheatley set to join from Audi
according to autosport, but their article is not working
Came here to post about Newey and Wheatley. There's a joke about a lettuce in there somewhere
Aston Martin really is quite the spectacle. It’s like Lawrence has invited all the big-dicks into a snazzy carbon fibre replica of the Crystal Maze dome, and he’s blowing piles and piles of cash around in the fans, but everyone’s picking up silver notes. When the fans stop and they count up an inevitably negative tally, Lawrence realises that he never put any gold notes in there and he just sits in the doorway sobbing.
It’s compelling viewing. Five stars in the TV Times; tune in next week when Jonathan Wheatley takes on a Mystery game and somehow gets locked in before Richard O’Brien has even turned the sand timer over.
Aston Martin really is quite the spectacle.
I'm hoping they are pre-Brawn Honda, a well-resourced team that just need time for the technical director to sort things out, rather than Toyota, who threw endless money at it but then tried to run it like a Japanese car company (see also Jaguar in this regard).
Aston Martin press releases saying things like "Newey's appointment was only ever meant to be temporary" which is fine as far as it goes, but both Andy Cowell, and Mike Krack - both at some point former Team Principals are still employed in the team, so why do they think bringing in another candidate for the role is going to be a good idea?
It’s all a it embarrassing after all the hype around the spectacle of a pure newey designed car
Andy Cowell, and Mike Krack - both at some point former Team Principals are still employed in the team, so why do they think bringing in another candidate for the role is going to be a good idea?
As far as I can tell from my distant armchair, Stroll’s strategy seems to be to hire all the expensive people first and then see what sort of structure shakes out around them—rather than create an effective structure and put the right people into the right positions. Didn’t McLaren learn this exact lesson a few years ago? As in, immediately before they went from the back of the grid to the front?
TBF a lot of people were surprised when he took the TP role rather than "just" design the car, but if this was a planned change they could've confirmed him as temporary TP originally.
Wheatley confirmed to be leaving audi "with immediate effect"
https://www.audif1.com/en/news/2026/Team-Statement-Management-Structure-Update
Meanwhile, Stroll’s statement is baffling:
“We do things differently here, and while we don't currently adopt the traditional Team Principal role that you see elsewhere – it is by design.“
So they don’t have a normal TP role, and that’s by design… but only currently. The implication being that they know the design needs to change?
I know Wheatley’s keen to work from the UK, but there must be a lot of pretty green on the table to make this omnishambles of a team look like fun.
there must be a lot of pretty green on the table to make this omnishambles of a team look like fun.
perhaps he's thinking it can't get any worse, therefore it must get better, therefore I can take the credit for that. I don't think I'd take that choice, but hey, I wasn't offered it.
I know Wheatley’s keen to work from the UK, but there must be a lot of pretty green on the table to make this omnishambles of a team look like fun.
Yeah Bild were saying a day or two ago that he wasn't getting on with Binotto and also that his family wanted to move back to England. Who knows if that's true though.
Presume he'd be on gardening leave now anyway so wonder what will happen at Aston in the meantime.