The previous Benetton mechanic and Purple Bull sporting director is ready to steer Audi’s 2026 F1 period.
Audi is formally becoming a member of the grid for this 12 months’s Components 1 season. However whereas the German marque is understood for its precision engineering, the staff will not be led by a squeaky-clean strategist who’s afraid of getting his palms soiled.
The 4 Rings undertaking will likely be led by Jonathan Wheatley—a real gearhead. Wheatley labored his means up the ladder from the ground of the pit storage. Starting as a humble junior mechanic within the early Nineties with Benetton, he earned his stripes as he climbed the ranks of the Enstone-based squad.
After successful two constructors’ championships with the staff and being promoted to chief mechanic, the Buckinghamshire-born Briton moved to the ranks of Purple Bull Racing as staff supervisor and sporting director.
Whereas he clearly thrives in some of the technologically demanding motorsport collection, he has a deep obsession with the oily and unsafe world of traditional vehicles. And here is how you realize he is actually one among us: Group B rally.
Wheatley’s Rally Roots
Chatting with , Wheatley defined why the transfer to Audi got here so naturally after a childhood fuelled by Quattro four-wheel drive.
“All the pieces I may examine motor racing I took in,” he stated. “And there was an unbelievable Audi Group B period, you realize? And even earlier than that, simply the traditional Quattros and simply watching these vehicles within the forest, after which following these monster Trans Am vehicles that they constructed.
“For those who’re a child, seeing vehicles with flames popping out of the exhaust is precisely what you must inspire you in the direction of motor racing… So I believe out of all of the alternatives I needed to additional my profession, I imply, I used to be drawn in the direction of Audi.”
‘For those who’re a child, seeing vehicles with flames popping out of the exhaust is precisely what you must inspire you in the direction of motor racing.’
Leaving Purple Bull on the finish of 2024, Wheatley joined Sauber as staff principal because it was readying itself for its Audi takeover. However because the son of a racing driver himself, he realized the mechanical ropes earlier than he even set foot in a automotive.
“I used to be most likely doing tire pressures on my dad’s automotive after I was eight or 9 years outdated,” he continued. “Understanding how issues work. I used to be all the time superb with my palms, working with issues. I used to be taking issues aside, constructing mannequin plane, mannequin vehicles, making an attempt to know how suspension works.”
When he began karting, this information grew to become extremely priceless. “No person else was going to arrange my kart in between races, and my brothers, so I did that. So I type of grew up working with my palms and loving fixing issues. Possibly there’s a type of thread that runs via. I like fixing issues, making issues higher.”
The Dream Storage
Porsche 911 2.0 Coupe
Whereas Wheatley at present each day drives an Audi RS6, a automotive he describes as having “extraordinary” efficiency, he admits that new equipment is nearly too succesful.
“It’s straightforward. You don’t take into consideration driving. You’ll be able to simply drive. And I believe additionally the truth that I can do one thing to those older vehicles, to modernise them a little bit bit, to make the driving expertise a little bit bit higher, use a little bit bit of recent know-how right here and there…”
That is why his satisfaction and pleasure is a Porsche 911 constructed the identical month and 12 months he was born (Could, 1967).
“[That was] the primary purpose for me shopping for it. I work on that automotive myself. I like to enhance it. You recognize, the wiring… can’t inform you the issues that I’ve completed to that automotive to make it higher.”
Naturally, he additionally each day drives an Audi Quattro.
Audi Quattro
“Very low mileage automotive, stunning. [I] Love driving that; surprisingly fashionable automotive to drive. I’ve simply acquired the winter wheels and tires for that, as a result of I drive my vehicles, they don’t sit within the storage, and I’ll be driving that to work over the winter as properly, on winter tires. I’m trying ahead to the primary snow. I’m going to get some winter tires for my traditional 911 as properly, and I’m going to go and revel in myself on the weekends, driving excessive of those mountains.”
Wheatley is our type of particular person. He is somebody who thrives on the driving expertise and never the efficiency.
“I just like the driving expertise, and when you have got an intense job, like I do, something that fully absorbs you and stops you occupied with the entire different issues which are happening in your head at any explicit time.”
Motor1’s Take: The Audi F1 staff is in good palms with Wheatley on the helm. A real automotive nut and an skilled motorsports professional, Wheatley’s information may assist Audi make a critical influence in F1 in its first season.
