Sauber Team Principal Jonathan Wheatley has said that he plans to change the team’s mentality amid its transition to the Audi Formula 1 team for next year.
Wheatley, who began the role at the Japanese Grand Prix, has moved from Red Bull to head up the German marque’s first-ever venture into F1.
Formerly the Milton Keynes squad’s Sporting Director, Wheatley also held the role of chief mechanic with Renault, making his current position the first time he has led a team from the front.
The Sauber outfit will officially become Audi next year, the second time the team has been bought by a German automotive giant.
BMW bought the team in 2006 and resold it to founder Peter Sauber ahead of the 2010 season, but Audi’s takeover means the Sauber name will fully disappear from the grid this time, having been present on it since 1993.
Speaking to F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Wheatley spoke of the differences he has already observed between his previous and current employers.
“It’s very, very different. I’m reminded of when I moved from Renault F1 to Red Bull back in 2006, that there’s a great spirit, but 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, and the overall, an overarching strategy for the next few years, very, very different outlooks.”
Wheatley articulated his vision for how the team will grow under his leadership, suggesting the building of a campus – something that Red Bull adopted on its Milton Keynes base – would be a positive step.
“What I would say is that the biggest issue we face is headcounts 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.
“In fact, I’m moving my and 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.”
Wheatley stresses the right mentality is the key to eventual F1 success for Audi
Wheatley is acutely aware that the success of an F1 team takes some years of hard graft at the back and the middle of the pack before it can reach the front.
Audi has already got Sauber’s longstanding Hinwil F1 base as a platform, similarly to how Red Bull adopted the previous base that Jaguar occupied upon its takeover in 2005.
The team took three seasons to win a Grand Prix and four to win a World Championship.
Wheatley has stressed that as long as everyone is providing the right mental approach, the team will eventually reach its targets for success, and believes its personnel’s mentality is more important than the number of those involved.
“I believe that a team is greater than the number of people in it,” he said. “I genuinely believe that if the team has the right mental attitude, if there’s the right energy, the culture’s correct, that you can achieve incredible things and you can over-perform.
“Now, I’ve loved working in those teams. I’ve worked in teams where that happens absolutely every day and where we are at Sauber is 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 for it to happen.”
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