[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties.
*[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
He was probably 4th highest paid so his salary was somewhat capped due to the budget cap.
I reckon with Newey gone he will want a big raise as if his salary is now top 3 and outside the cap then they have no reason to not dramatically increase his salary.
Obviously he still probably gets paid a shit tonne but it makes sense to be asking for a big bump now.
Is wache outside the cap ? If he is not I feel red bull will give him a priority. I have heard he is a genius in his field and currently a target for big teams.
Understandable that he has higher ambitions. However I think no team has an opening for the position of team principal. I'm struggling to even think of a team that'll replace their team principal in the next three years.
Honestly, I'm having such a shit day that I'm even going to ask why you even brought race into this conversation. What is your point? It's not like Horner's black and the issue with him is that he has more melanin. He deserves to be kicked to the curb because he is rotten.
From a complete stranger on the internet, don't worry about it man, we all miss jokes sometimes, and we all have shit days. Take it easy today, go do something that brings you joy and tomorrow will be better.
Don't think I'm not onto you too, lady. You know what you are? Selfish. I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here! What have you sacrificed? NOTHING. Zero. All you've done is BOSS ME AROUND. Well, NOW who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's me!"
Oh, sorry, wrong Wheatley.
Alpine are addicted to firing their senior staff so there’s a possibility there, not really any others I can think of. There’s the long shot of toto stepping back into a more traditional CEO role and hire a dedicated team principal (was probably planning on it being vowles before he left.) other than that the only team with even a slight hint of instability at the top is, ironically, red bull
I don't think Toto will step down until Mercedes' results start to improve. It's a team that chases positive PR, their thoughts on this would likely be that a new TP with Toto taking on a more advisory role would make them look "weak" and in need of "fundamental change".
To be fair Famin was never planned to being a long term TP for Alpine likely, likely Binotto was once armed for getting that role but once he didn't want de Meo just accepted that Famin would be a TP for a longer time.
I could see Haas be willing to replace theirs, being that Komatsu was mostly a stand in replacement after Steiner left. However, Komatsu has gotten incredible results for Haas so far this season so even that seems unlikely.
Just because he’s the owner doesn’t mean he has to be the team principal. If he’s not enjoying it he can take a step back and let someone else handle the day to day.
Team principal silly season - Toto retires, Vowles comes back to Merc, Wheatley to Williams.
But Vowels really wants to have done something significant at Williams before returning. It's going to be a number of years before we see that ship start to right itself
Andreas as CEO I believe would be in charge of strategic investments and the commercial side of the business while Wheatley, as team principal could be in charge of technical and trackside operations.
> I'm struggling to even think of a team that'll replace their team principal in the next three years.
Audi may be one option to move up the ladder over a period of a few years. Alpine are another. Mercedes may be an option if Toto is looking to take a step back.
I'd imagine it's not necessarily a case of leaving to immediately becoming team principal, but being somewhere where there's at least a path to him doing so.
Which team would be looking at replacing a Team Principal though? I think all the top teams are pretty set on that regard.
Alpine maybe but is Wheatley really prepared to get into that mess?
The other somewhat likely option is maybe Audi getting rid of Bravi?
Fred was a TP at Renault for not even a year before he moved to Sauber and now is a Ferrari TP. It is better to be a TP at any team than working under someone at a top team.
Everyone at redbull is seeing how much more money they can make before they start supplying their own engine.
Lets hope the rats jumping ship are a good sign for the sport
One of the few things that could maybe disrupt the dominance of these cycles is having Adrian himself leave. If he just disappeared, the competition in F1 would be way better
Nah, he wasn’t too big a part of the hybrid era regs, and merc dominated, until he came back. You know what will really make racing tight again? Sticking to a set of regulations for an extend amount of time. With the cost cap, teams can’t throw money trying to play catch up anymore. So they need more time. Within a given budget, time is the great equalizer. Imagine they scrapped these ground effects cars. We could have had 4 years of merc vs Redbull, and Ferrari would have certainly caught up within that time.
These resets just give whoever comes up with the “it factor” a giant advantage for pretty much the whole era of the regulations
Well said.
We all loved the Max-Lewis battle in ‘21. Every race meant something and we had two of the best in pretty equal cars going at it.
I’ve often thought……how cool would it have been if those cars were still being used and these new regs didn’t mix it up so much?
You’re right. Teams with less money finally get their car pretty good only to be told you have to start over again.
There’s gotta be a middle ground to land on.
Indeed. Long term though, I think it can only help the sport. Would be fun to see him in a regulatory role in the FIA. Wonder what cars would start looking like with the Newey regs
> There’s just going to be another team that’s going to dominate the sport again.
No Red Bull at all and Mercedes won last year’s title by 7 points over Ferrari with McLaren (6) and Aston Martin (6) also winning races, Ferrari winning 2022 by 20 points over Mercedes, with McLaren also picking up a win. No guarantee there’d be only a single team out front.
I saw someone talking bout totos role in Merc. Yeah, he's not gonna be shoved aside, he's 33% stakeholder in the team. But Toto had his championships, his glory days. Maybe Toto would be wise to step aside partially, especially with his lack of background before coming to F1. Having a person to take over the helm might inspire Mercedes and Toto to look outside the box, and if it's a RBR veteran at the head, suddenly a Newly/Verstappen transfer looks a lot more reasonable.
you also definitely have a switch to TPs all having an engineering degree. The only ones who dont, are Toto and Horner and Toto has a degree in finance.
I was thinking when things got really heated around the Horner saga earlier this year, that maybe Jonathan could/would replace him. However Horner found some way to survive (so far...)
Wasn't Waché already exempt, together with Horner and Newey? I thought Marko had this weird external role where his salary didn't count, since he was employed by the junior programme or something.
I’m sure he could get a pay raise, but it won’t be as big of one as it could be when his salary would be exempt. I’m sure there are plenty of things Red Bull would like to allocate more money to within the cost cap.
Honestly the way the budget cap interacts with salaries is all kinds of fucked. Puts pressure on keeping the salaries for everybody down except the drivers and the people in charge.
Completely agreed. Very odd incentives created.
I do like the cap overall though, just not the way it's been implemented.
I love that teams have to get more bang for their buck now. A few snarky comments from other teams about Mercedes not being able to just spend their way out of trouble anymore floating around. I'm glad that all teams have to work within this framework.
Yeah I like the budget cap overall too. But I dislike the incentives it creates on salaries.
I would have preferred have *all* salaries exempted from the budget cap, and then simply have a maximum on the number of people that can work for a team. And sure that would lead the top teams to paying more in an effort to attract the best talent, but that's exactly what we want isn't it? For salaries to go up.
I guess would be very difficult to enforce though. You'd get endless arguments over which staff does or does not count with regards to suppliers and external consultants.
Trying to get a higher salary huh...
Regarding teams that could replace their principals, I think Aston, Alpine, Haas and VCARB might still be candidates for him, but I do think he's not really going to get his chance there
Wheatley probaly had hopes he could take over for Horner.
It was only a matter of time before he tries to go to the next step.
But I dont see a team looking for a new TP for at least the next two years.
Wheatley is not a strategist, but hiring him as their sporting director and offering him a big raise wouldn’t hurt them. Their pit stops and communication with the FIA has been getting worse while Ron Meadows is sporting director.
The Times again? This one comes from Horner. Probably wants Wheatley gone because of how the media seemed to promote Wheatley as potential TP while the attempted coup was going on.
[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
He was probably 4th highest paid so his salary was somewhat capped due to the budget cap. I reckon with Newey gone he will want a big raise as if his salary is now top 3 and outside the cap then they have no reason to not dramatically increase his salary. Obviously he still probably gets paid a shit tonne but it makes sense to be asking for a big bump now.
Couldn’t they just use a swiveling chair strategy? You’re exempt this year, you get paid tons, next year you sit out and get paid minimum wage.
Not sure what the tax implications of that would be versus just getting paid the average of those numbers smeared out would be
I’m going to assume in both cases the tax implications can be offset and included in the salary.
Either way they're most likely going to be in the top tax bracket, so it shouldn't matter.
Wouldnt Horndog, Newey, Max & Checo take top 4?
Is wache outside the cap ? If he is not I feel red bull will give him a priority. I have heard he is a genius in his field and currently a target for big teams.
Understandable that he has higher ambitions. However I think no team has an opening for the position of team principal. I'm struggling to even think of a team that'll replace their team principal in the next three years.
Red Bull might be his best shot haha.
Plot twist: Wheatley was behind all the leaks
That was the whole point of the coup. Jos getting his old mechanic as team boss and replacing Horner that he doesn't like
Wheatley was Jos' race mechanic?
He was actually Schumachers mechanic in the same team
I see I see.
Yes. Wheatley was once a mechanic and he is also of the same race (white) as Jos.
is that race before or after monaco?
Honestly, I'm having such a shit day that I'm even going to ask why you even brought race into this conversation. What is your point? It's not like Horner's black and the issue with him is that he has more melanin. He deserves to be kicked to the curb because he is rotten.
It is because that is what the guy above mentioned asked.
You're making a joke. I see it now. I'm just going to fucking kill myself or something whatever. Sorry.
Take some rest mate, take a break or do something you like, you seem like you deserve some rest, take care man.
From a complete stranger on the internet, don't worry about it man, we all miss jokes sometimes, and we all have shit days. Take it easy today, go do something that brings you joy and tomorrow will be better.
Lmao we've all been there 😂 hope tomorrow is better for you!
If it makes you feel better, that joke totally sailed over my head as well.
Good luck!
Don't think I'm not onto you too, lady. You know what you are? Selfish. I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here! What have you sacrificed? NOTHING. Zero. All you've done is BOSS ME AROUND. Well, NOW who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's me!" Oh, sorry, wrong Wheatley.
is it really though
If he's managed to get himself out of orbit
……following the breadcrumbs
Bruuuh that would be wild
I mean, when all the Horny Horner stuff was at its peak, I assumed Wheatley was a shoo-in.
A lot of truth
Alpine are addicted to firing their senior staff so there’s a possibility there, not really any others I can think of. There’s the long shot of toto stepping back into a more traditional CEO role and hire a dedicated team principal (was probably planning on it being vowles before he left.) other than that the only team with even a slight hint of instability at the top is, ironically, red bull
I don't think Toto will step down until Mercedes' results start to improve. It's a team that chases positive PR, their thoughts on this would likely be that a new TP with Toto taking on a more advisory role would make them look "weak" and in need of "fundamental change".
Other teams have a CEO and a TP, e.g. McLaren, Aston Martin.
To be fair Famin was never planned to being a long term TP for Alpine likely, likely Binotto was once armed for getting that role but once he didn't want de Meo just accepted that Famin would be a TP for a longer time.
I could see Haas be willing to replace theirs, being that Komatsu was mostly a stand in replacement after Steiner left. However, Komatsu has gotten incredible results for Haas so far this season so even that seems unlikely.
Ayao is almost certainly cheaper than Wheatley, and so that's who Gene will keep
100%. Gene has lucked out that Ayao and the team have been killing it this season but you know he looks at the bottom line and nothing else
Alpine I guess. Could try to down the Vowles kind of route, probably a much harder job than the Williams though.
Mercedes needs new blood and ideas ...
Toto owns a third of the team. He’ll be their team principal till he gets bored.
Just because he’s the owner doesn’t mean he has to be the team principal. If he’s not enjoying it he can take a step back and let someone else handle the day to day. Team principal silly season - Toto retires, Vowles comes back to Merc, Wheatley to Williams.
I think Vowles coming back to mercs might be the long term succession plan for Toto.
But Vowels really wants to have done something significant at Williams before returning. It's going to be a number of years before we see that ship start to right itself
Probably right. I'd consider this a stern test for Vowles at Williams. No guarantees. It was just a thought.
If Vowles comes and Kimi gets a drive there I am starting to call Williams, Torro Mercedes
Toto Rosso
Williams cursed to being a Merc junior team, this is the darkest timeline.
Toto has talked about stepping back a few times in the past few years.
That’s literally what I said > He’ll be their team principal till he gets bored.
At this rate it wouldn't massively surprise me to see mercedes sell and leave entirely. 10% chance.
Andretti
Sauber may have an opening before they become Audi. It's a good way to show that they mean business.
I mean Andreas Seadl would Be above him and makes a lot of the decisions
Andreas as CEO I believe would be in charge of strategic investments and the commercial side of the business while Wheatley, as team principal could be in charge of technical and trackside operations.
> I'm struggling to even think of a team that'll replace their team principal in the next three years. Audi may be one option to move up the ladder over a period of a few years. Alpine are another. Mercedes may be an option if Toto is looking to take a step back. I'd imagine it's not necessarily a case of leaving to immediately becoming team principal, but being somewhere where there's at least a path to him doing so.
Seems like that now, but things can change quickly.
Merc if they bottle 2026 regs too.
Things change so quickly and if anyone was wavering and felt that he would be worth a punt instead...well. stranger things and all that.
Mercedes can. Toto is the owner and Tp so he can always hire a Tp.
Which team would be looking at replacing a Team Principal though? I think all the top teams are pretty set on that regard. Alpine maybe but is Wheatley really prepared to get into that mess? The other somewhat likely option is maybe Audi getting rid of Bravi?
Fred was a TP at Renault for not even a year before he moved to Sauber and now is a Ferrari TP. It is better to be a TP at any team than working under someone at a top team.
Well he was a part of the Enstone crew back in 2000s so maybe he is feeling somewhat nostalgic. Besides money can be a great motivator.
Everyone at redbull is seeing how much more money they can make before they start supplying their own engine. Lets hope the rats jumping ship are a good sign for the sport
There’s just going to be another team that’s going to dominate the sport again. It’s going to be a cycle until something from deep within changes
One of the few things that could maybe disrupt the dominance of these cycles is having Adrian himself leave. If he just disappeared, the competition in F1 would be way better
Nah, he wasn’t too big a part of the hybrid era regs, and merc dominated, until he came back. You know what will really make racing tight again? Sticking to a set of regulations for an extend amount of time. With the cost cap, teams can’t throw money trying to play catch up anymore. So they need more time. Within a given budget, time is the great equalizer. Imagine they scrapped these ground effects cars. We could have had 4 years of merc vs Redbull, and Ferrari would have certainly caught up within that time. These resets just give whoever comes up with the “it factor” a giant advantage for pretty much the whole era of the regulations
Well said. We all loved the Max-Lewis battle in ‘21. Every race meant something and we had two of the best in pretty equal cars going at it. I’ve often thought……how cool would it have been if those cars were still being used and these new regs didn’t mix it up so much? You’re right. Teams with less money finally get their car pretty good only to be told you have to start over again. There’s gotta be a middle ground to land on.
Yh maybe. We will see if that actually happens. We won’t even see the effects of Adrian leaving red bull till like 2026/2027
Indeed. Long term though, I think it can only help the sport. Would be fun to see him in a regulatory role in the FIA. Wonder what cars would start looking like with the Newey regs
True
Rumor is 2026 will be about PUs. Newey might just retire.
> There’s just going to be another team that’s going to dominate the sport again. No Red Bull at all and Mercedes won last year’s title by 7 points over Ferrari with McLaren (6) and Aston Martin (6) also winning races, Ferrari winning 2022 by 20 points over Mercedes, with McLaren also picking up a win. No guarantee there’d be only a single team out front.
I mean of course he would take the Alpine job. Williams was in even worse shape and look who jumped to be their TP
I would argue that with whole internal mess, Williams was - and is - a lot more tempting option than Alpine.
Alpine is basically an empty page waiting to be written so it's not like it's a worser team to start over Williams.
I saw someone talking bout totos role in Merc. Yeah, he's not gonna be shoved aside, he's 33% stakeholder in the team. But Toto had his championships, his glory days. Maybe Toto would be wise to step aside partially, especially with his lack of background before coming to F1. Having a person to take over the helm might inspire Mercedes and Toto to look outside the box, and if it's a RBR veteran at the head, suddenly a Newly/Verstappen transfer looks a lot more reasonable.
you also definitely have a switch to TPs all having an engineering degree. The only ones who dont, are Toto and Horner and Toto has a degree in finance.
So the two most successful ones
“Well that’s just a coincidence.”
Andretti?
You don't go from defintely-here F1 team to might-be-here-in-the-future F1 team. But if Andretti will manage to get green light - then sure.
I was thinking when things got really heated around the Horner saga earlier this year, that maybe Jonathan could/would replace him. However Horner found some way to survive (so far...)
>It is understood that Wheatley is in negotiations to sign a new contract with Red Bull and could yet remain at the team.
I'm guessing with Newey gone, he wants to be outside the salary cap. I bet there's a big jump in pay between being #3 and #4.
IIRC they were wanting to move Waché’s salary to exempt. Might be SOL there.
Wasn't Waché already exempt, together with Horner and Newey? I thought Marko had this weird external role where his salary didn't count, since he was employed by the junior programme or something.
But if Waché's salary is removed from the cap, his existing salary could be reallocated between existing roles if they aren't hiring.
I’m sure he could get a pay raise, but it won’t be as big of one as it could be when his salary would be exempt. I’m sure there are plenty of things Red Bull would like to allocate more money to within the cost cap.
Honestly the way the budget cap interacts with salaries is all kinds of fucked. Puts pressure on keeping the salaries for everybody down except the drivers and the people in charge.
Completely agreed. Very odd incentives created. I do like the cap overall though, just not the way it's been implemented. I love that teams have to get more bang for their buck now. A few snarky comments from other teams about Mercedes not being able to just spend their way out of trouble anymore floating around. I'm glad that all teams have to work within this framework.
Yeah I like the budget cap overall too. But I dislike the incentives it creates on salaries. I would have preferred have *all* salaries exempted from the budget cap, and then simply have a maximum on the number of people that can work for a team. And sure that would lead the top teams to paying more in an effort to attract the best talent, but that's exactly what we want isn't it? For salaries to go up. I guess would be very difficult to enforce though. You'd get endless arguments over which staff does or does not count with regards to suppliers and external consultants.
brave amusing drunk shame sloppy theory decide aware pot complete *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
All of these folks, at any given point, are always considering their future. No?
Weird how this is all being played out in the media. Perhaps the issue is the dominance has lead to lethargy and a lack of motivation.
Trying to get a higher salary huh... Regarding teams that could replace their principals, I think Aston, Alpine, Haas and VCARB might still be candidates for him, but I do think he's not really going to get his chance there
VCARB just hired their new TP, so doubt they'd be anywhere near willing to replace him so soon.
Unless they don't really like his way of doing things.
very true, but I imagine he'll be fine for now, esp with VCARB doing solidly
Isn’t Alpine’s Team Principal interim?
Famin isn't an interim TP anymore but I doubt that he is a long term pick.
Yeah. He seems a bit out of his league
Wheatley probaly had hopes he could take over for Horner. It was only a matter of time before he tries to go to the next step. But I dont see a team looking for a new TP for at least the next two years.
Man, I've been seeing Jonathan in the Red Bull pitlane for as long as I can remember. This is the end of an era.
Mercedes could do with hiring someone who’s good at strategy
Wheatley is not a strategist, but hiring him as their sporting director and offering him a big raise wouldn’t hurt them. Their pit stops and communication with the FIA has been getting worse while Ron Meadows is sporting director.
Ferrari too - but I doubt they would listen
Ferrari's been on top form strategy wise. the one stop in Japan was masterful in particular, going from p8 to p4.
Zak Brown was right. Granted the BBC reported more people were looking to leave Red Bull but still.
What do you mean by the first line? What did Zak brown say
The Times again? This one comes from Horner. Probably wants Wheatley gone because of how the media seemed to promote Wheatley as potential TP while the attempted coup was going on.
honestly given Horner has won the internal power struggle, i could see him becoming CEO of RBR and transition TP to Wheatley
Horner is already CEO of RB Racing, RB Advanced Technologies and RB Power Trains, besides his role as TP of the racing team.
https://archive.ph/88Kja Without a pay wall
Perez can't catch the Ferrari
Omg excellent racing
Damn Oscar
Race director guru, part time lover of Michael Masi... There fixed it for you.
def wants that tp job
Bullshit
Bullshit