Former Red Bull employee sends ‘collapse’ warning after Jonathan Wheatley exit

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Jonathan Wheatley is leaving Red Bull to take over as team principal at Audi, it emerged on Thursday. Wheatley will stay with the team for the rest of 2024 before a period of gardening leave next year.

He becomes the second major figure to depart the Milton Keynes outfit this term after Adrian Newey handed in his resignation in the spring. Unlike sporting director Wheatley, Newey won’t have to serve any gardening leave and is free to work for another team from early 2025.

Red Bull ‘completely blindsided’ Audi as they announced the 57-year-old’s departure. But later in the day, the German manufacturer duly confirmed his arrival.

Audi will enter F1 in 2026 as they take control of the Sauber team. They recently appointed former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto to oversee their F1 project, and Wheatley will work under him.

In their statement, Red Bull said they would announce a new structure in due course. On the technical side, Pierre Wache and Enrico Balbo are set to take on more power following Newey’s exit.

There may also be an in-house successor to Wheatley. The Briton will hope to sign off with a third straight constructors’ title this year, and a seventh at Red Bull overall.

Dan Drury says Red Bull are now collapsing as Jonathan Wheatley leaves

Writing on his X account, former Red Bull employee Dan Drury offered his immediate reaction to the news. Drury worked as a senior systems engineer for Christian Horner’s team between 2016 and 2022.

He can’t quite believe the ‘collapse’ he’s witnessing at his old team. And he suspects that there are further departures to come.

“We are watching the collapse of a team,” he wrote. “Incredible. Newey, Wheatley, who else?”

Red Bull started the 2024 season enjoying the same level of dominance they had produced in a historic 2024 season. Only Max Verstappen’s brake issue in Australia prevented a clean sweep of the first five races, but they still claimed three one-two finishes.

However, McLaren and Mercedes have outdeveloped them in recent months. Ted Kravitz says it’s ‘unheard of’ for Red Bull to lose out in the upgrade battle, but that’s been the story of the campaign.

Who is Jonathan Wheatley?

Like Newey, Wheatley joined Red Bull in 2006. He left a championship-winning Renault team to do so, but the risk paid off.

Four years later, Sebastian Vettel began an era of dominance not unlike what Verstappen has produced recently. And Wheatley has been a key figure in both those periods of success.

• READ MORE: Who is Jonathan Wheatley? Everything you need to know about Audi and Sauber’s new F1 team principal

Red Bull credit him with their peerless pit-stop record, and he may also have been influential in the outcome of the 2021 world championship. Wheatley lobbied race director Michael Masi to restart the race so Verstappen could overtake Lewis Hamilton and win the title.

It seems his ambitions in the sport have exceeded in his current role at Red Bull. But externally, his decision may be viewed as a fresh sign of turmoil.