A former F1 team principal has shed light on how one immediate decision from legendary racer Niki Lauda indirectly led to his own premature sacking.

During his time in F1, Lauda picked up three drivers’ championships and survived a near-fatal crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix, which took place on the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife.

At the time of his incident, Lauda was the reigning champion, and after suffering life-changing injuries, managed to persevere and claim back another title in 1977 with Ferrari.

The Austrian icon also won the 1984 drivers’ world championship with McLaren, the team he would then choose to retire with the following year.

But even after he stopped racing in F1, Lauda’s famous no-nonsense attitude found a place off the track. In 1993 he took up an advisory role at the Scuderia, and between 2001 and 2002 was the team principal of Jaguar.

And it was the hiring of Lauda for this position that stopped Otmar Szafnauer from ever officially joining the team who would eventually become Red Bull Racing.

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How F1 legend Niki Lauda caused brutal Otmar Szafnauer axe

Szafnauer is no stranger to an F1 sacking. After becoming the team principal of Alpine in 2022, the Romanian-American failed to make it to the end of the 2023 campaign.

After back-to-back DNFs for Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly at the British and Hungarian Grands Prix that year, Szafnauer and his ally and sporting director Alan Permane were both sacked.

Though Bruno Famin took over in the interim, this decision triggered a run of leadership changes, with Oliver Oakes replacing Famin after the 2024 summer break and current leader Flavio Briatore stepping up to take Oakes’ place in May 2025.

On a recent episode of the High Performance Racing Podcast, Szafnauer was asked by host Jake Humphrey whether his Alpine F1 firing was the first time he had ever been sacked.

Szafnauer replied: “No. Second.”

Naturally, this led Humphrey to enquire: “What was the first?”

“That’s a good story,” Szafnauer teased. “So I’m at British American Racing [BAR], youngest operations director in the pit lane. I was early 30s… Ford buys Stewart Grand Prix, remember? And turns it into Jaguar Racing.

“Neil Ressler’s running the programme from Ford and through his relationship in IndyCar with Bobby Rahal… hires Bobby Rahal as team principal and Bobby comes over, but Bobby says, ‘I’ll do it. However, I have an IndyCar team that I need to run as well. So, I can’t compromise that, but I’ll try to do both. And it was difficult because we raced on different sides of the Atlantic. So Bobby was going back and forth, IndyCar racing over there, spending time with his IndyCar team, then back here, racing here, also spending time at the factory.

“And he thought it was a good idea to have somebody permanently in this factory, like his right-hand man that could always stay there, so he asked me through a friend if I wanted to join him as chief operating officer.

“I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ Operations director at BAR. I’ll move over. Chief operating officer had ‘chief’ in it. Thought that’s a little bit better.”

“I had my gardening leave to see out,” continued Szafnauer, explaining why he couldn’t simply switch teams immediately. But it was the time he was required to take out from the sport that gave Jaguar enough time to hire Lauda as team principal, prompting big changes.

“It was in August on a Friday. Malcolm Oastler’s PA gets married. Linda Fischer. I’m at her wedding Friday afternoon. I get a phone call. Niki Lauda has just fired Bobby Rahal and because you were hired by Bobby, don’t come in on Monday.

“So this was Friday, my last gardening leave day. I was due to start Monday, right? So there’s only Saturday, Sunday. I’m getting ready to go to JAG as chief operating officer. Don’t come in.

The shocking story of how Szafnauer suffered his first brutal F1 sacking before he had even started in the position then prompted Humphrey to simply respond: “And that is why they call Formula 1 the piranha club.”

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Adrian Newey’s days at the helm of Aston Martin F1 team could be numbered if the rumours coming out of the Miami Grand Prix paddock are to be believed.

When Lawrence Stroll’s F1 outfit announced the monumental signing of the design genius in September 2024, I doubt anyone at the Silverstone squad would have predicted that Newey would step into the role of team principal over a year later.

In November 2025, Aston Martin dropped a bombshell announcement confirming yet another leadership reshuffle that saw ex-F1 boss Andy Cowell move into the role of chief strategy officer, with Newey replacing him as team principal.

With such a massive overhaul of regulations on the horizon, this took many by surprise considering that Newey already had enough on his plate as managing technical partner.

And those who questioned the decision were only proven right come the opening round of the 2026 campaign.

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Should Newey be replaced as Aston Martin team principal?

After arriving late to pre-season testing, Newey’s new F1 car got minimum track time, with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll putting in the lowest lap count out of all 11 teams.

Struggles with the 2026 chassis and Aston Martin’s new power unit providers Honda have persisted across the opening rounds of the year and it was only on the fourth race weekend in Miami last time out that both drivers actually managed to complete a full-length grand prix.

Understandably, this has led many critics to suggest the British engineer should be left to work on Aston Martin’s technical woes with another more suitable replacement called in to take on the media-facing responsibilities of a team principal.

So, when Audi announced the premature exit of their team principal and Newey’s former Red Bull colleague Jonathan Wheatley, it seemed the perfect replacement had been identified.

Nearly two months later however, Wheatley is yet to speak on his Audi exit which came about due to ‘personal reasons’, whilst Newey is still juggling an overwhelming amount of responsibility at Aston Martin.

But could that be about to change?

Wheatley talks ramp up in F1 paddock, claims insider

Having spent the Miami GP weekend in the F1 paddock earlier this month, Up to Speed podcast host Jolie Sharpe reported back to her co-hosts with gossip from the grid.

“There’s much more chatter now about Wheatley,” Sharpe revealed on a recent episode.

“You know, I think that that should be announced… to be the new team principal at Aston Martin. I think that’s coming.”

Pushed by co-host Will Buxton to give further details about when the change could come, Sharpe added: “A lot sooner. They really want that announcement to be made.

“There’s also been talks that they’re thinking that around race 14… they’re thinking they could get into Q2.”

“So, the atmosphere and the energy there, I think, look, they’re all used to it. They knew what was happening before the season started, and I think any improvement is a big bonus. And they’ve accepted it and it’s not great.”

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2025 F1 world champion Lando Norris has opened up on F1 legend Lewis Hamilton‘s first world championship victory in 2008, revealing quite how awestruck he was by the moment.

Norris became the first British world champion since Hamilton last year, and has had the privilege of racing against and sharing the podium with the seven-time champion since he himself joined the grid back in 2019.

Hamilton is the most successful driver in F1 history, but his first title was arguably the hardest-fought title of his career.

After coming off the back of championship heartbreak in his rookie season in 2007 where he became within just a point of the title, Hamilton and his McLaren team faced a fierce challenge from Ferrari in 2008.

Heading into the final race of the season at Brazilian GP, Hamilton held a seven-point lead over Felipe Massa, and just needed to finish fifth to be sure of the championship.

But a rain-hit race threw up chaos for the Brit. On lap 69, he ran wide into the corner, allowing Toro Rosso youngster Sebastian Vettel to overtake him for fifth position.

With Massa leading the race, Hamilton spent the final laps desperately trying to get back past Vettel and into the spot that would hand him championship glory. When Massa crossed the line, Hamilton was down in sixth, and the Ferrari team went crazy with celebrations, thinking their man had won the 2008 championship.

But little did they know that rounding the penultimate turn at the track, Toyota’s Timo Glock was struggling for grip in the rain, and Hamilton took full advantage to fly past the German and into fifth, securing him the championship and leading to heartbreak for the Ferrari team and Brazilian crowd.

“This is the one where the commentators are going crazy,” Norris said in a video alongside Arsenal footballer Declan Rice. “It’s raining, he’s effectively not won the championship until one corner to go where he passes Glock which is one of the most famous videos ever in F1.

Explaining the 2008 machine to Rice, Norris said: “This is Lewis’ car, the one that crossed the line in Brazil and won him the championship. It’s pretty nuts to think that this is it. If I could, I would steal this any day.

“This was my first year watching F1. This was my first year and I was like ‘man this is sick, what is this?'”

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Hamilton builds on 2008 success

Following 2008, Hamilton faced five seasons without adding another championship, but a move to Mercedes in 2013 opened up more opportunities for the Brit.

When the 2014 regulation changes came into force, Mercedes were the dominant team on the grid, and Hamilton managed to claim six of the next seven world championships.

It means that he holds the joint-record for the number of world championships in F1 history alongside Michael Schumacher, but holds the outright all-time records for the number of race wins, pole positions and podiums in the series.

The British F1 legend now finds himself at Ferrari trying to add to his various record-breaking tallies, but faces stiff competition from Norris at McLaren and his former Mercedes team.

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