Wheatley: Mentality shift can help struggling Sauber succeed in F1 as Audi

Having been part of F1 championship-winning teams before, Jonathan Wheatley knows how to bring about success for Audi once it enters the series next year

Jonathan Wheatley is aiming to install a big-team mentality at Sauber before it completes its switch to Audi from 2026 – although the former Red Bull sporting director admits it will take “years” to get to the top of Formula 1.

Having left Red Bull two years ago, Wheatley has now started his new role as team principal of Sauber, which finished bottom of the constructors’ championship last year and currently occupies the same spot after the opening five races of 2025.

Wheatley is one of several names brought in by Audi to turn the tide ahead of the German manufacturer’s long-awaited F1 debut next year. Having been integral to championship-winning efforts with both Renault and Red Bull, the 57-year-old knows what needs to change at Sauber.

“Well, one of them is in Switzerland, the other one's in Milton Keynes,” he joked when asked about the biggest differences between Red Bull and Sauber on an episode of Beyond The Grid.

“It's very, very different. I'm reminded of when I moved from Renault F1 to Red Bull back in 2006. There's a great spirit, but [no] defined structures of how a racing team works when it becomes a big team.

“The way you think as a big team compared with being a smaller team... [these are] very, very different outlooks.

“The biggest issue we face is that headcounts are increasing and office space isn't. So there's a lot of people crammed into small spaces at the moment, but there's an expansion plan under way.

“There's a plan in place. I think that whole feel and look of a campus will be a great message for the team. It will show the team this is happening and we're on the journey.”

Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Despite its recruitment drive, Sauber still employs far fewer people than the teams battling it out at the business end of the grid.

For Wheatley, though, it is about quality rather than quantity when it comes to staffing numbers.

“I believe that a team is greater than the number of people in it - I genuinely believe that if the team has the right mental attitude, if there's the right energy and the culture's correct, you can achieve incredible things and you can over-perform,” he said.

“I've loved working in those teams. I've worked in teams where that happens absolutely every day. At Sauber we have to make sure that happens in every single department, every single day. Everyone's pulling together as one team.

“That's why these things, these transformations, don't just take place in six months or eight months. It takes years to happen.”