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Binotto and Wheatley welcomed with open arms: 'Perfect constellation'
- Sandy van Wijngaarden
Mattia Binotto has been co-managing Audi's F1 project since August. The former Ferrari team boss will soon join forces with Red Bull Racing's current sporting director Jonathan Wheatley at Audi.
Audi awaits arrival of Wheatley
Gernot Döllner, the CEO of Audi AG, spoke about the decision to sign Binotto. "Mattia is the perfect fit to our team. With his 30-year experience, he knows how it feels to win. He has experience in different roles."
Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull Racing's sporting director, will become Audi's team boss from 2026. "Together with Jonathan, who will join later, we believe that we have a perfect constellation to see where we are right now and really to create a set-up, an organisation, technological aspects, to develop that plan that brings us to the top in the future," Döllner said.
For the time being, Binotto has to steer the ship alone, as Wheatley will not start until the middle of next year. Binotto is looking forward to that. "I think there are no secrets. We need to bridge from now to maybe July next year. Certainly what will become Jonathan's responsibility, so racing activities and team principal at the race track, is something which I was used to doing in the past. And I will certainly organise myself with an extra effort, to try to cover it in the meantime. But we will as well organise ourselves at the race tracks in a way that there will be some clear responsibility with which we support. Maybe myself not being present at all races because the focus is, at the moment, back at the factories, where I think we need to develop the most," Binotto said.
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