Red Bull to release Wheatley early, but not Courtenay

Last August, Jonathan Wheatley announced that he would leave his long-standing team, Red Bull Racing, to join the Stake Sauber team, future Audi, as director.

While he finished the 2024 season in his position as sporting director and his arrival was initially planned for July 2025, the Austrian team finally agreed to release him in April. According to information from Motorsport.comWheatley is currently on notice period while he finishes his contract.

This revelation comes even as Sauber formalized this Wednesday the departure of the man who has managed the team since 2023, Alessandro Alunni Bravi, as representative and general manager, at the end of January. It is a priori Mattia Binotto, appointed last year as operations director and chief technical director of the Swiss company, who will act as interim manager between the departure of Alunni Bravi on January 31 and the arrival of Wheatley on April 1.

At the same time, another future starter from Red Bull, strategy manager Will Courtenay, will not experience the same fate and will have to wait a while before being able to join his next team, namely McLaren.

Red Bull has in fact confirmed that Courtenay will continue in his role throughout the 2025 season and will therefore not be released earlier to become the sporting director of the reigning world champion structure. Even more, the Austrian firm expects the engineer to complete his contract which runs until mid-2026.

In fact, Courtenay should therefore remain on the pit wall for 2025 before being placed on notice period after the end of the campaign and until the conclusion of his contract.