The simple answer is that the top management of Aston Martin and Audi have felt things were not working at various junctures and decided to act.
As far as Audi is concerned, it was clear some time ago that not enough investment was being put into Sauber early enough for the team to be in good shape when Audi officially entered F1 in 2026.
Andreas Seidl, the first chief executive officer, had been concerned about that for a while, and there was a bit of a power struggle between him and Oliver Hoffmann, the chairman of the boards of all Sauber companies, through 2023 and 2024.
It was expected one would win out. In the end, Audi decided to remove them both, and appoint Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley in a dual leadership role, Binotto as chief operating and technical officer and Wheatley as team principal.
Many in F1 raised their eyebrows at that – dual leaderships rarely work. Add in that at Audi there was another senior figure, in chief executive officer Adam Baker, and many felt the leadership of Audi looked unwieldy.
So it was not a massive surprise when that structure was streamlined, with Baker removed, and Binotto made head of the Audi F1 project under Audi CEO Gernot Dollner.
That was supposed to be that. Binotto was in overall charge, Wheatley ran the race team.
But when Wheatley decided that he wanted to come back to the UK, his talks with Aston Martin leaked, and he and Audi agreed to split with immediate effect.
As for Aston Martin, Lawrence Stroll is an ambitious man, he wants success, and he has invested a lot of money in it.
So it’s hardly a surprise that, when he feels things are not working, he takes action.
All the changes he has made have seemed logical on one level or another. There was clearly a problem with car design – after they made a big leap forward in 2023 under new technical director Dan Fallows, the team failed to develop the car effectively in season. They started 2024 less competitively and fell backwards again.
At the same time, Stroll was recruiting Newey. Why wouldn’t he, given he was available having left Red Bull? And with Newey on board, and the team stumbling under Fallows, it’s hardly a surprise Fallows would be considered surplus to requirements.
Same with the leadership. Mike Krack became team principal but the team was not moving in a convincing direction. Hence Stroll looked for change. Andy Cowell is highly regarded; his recruitment made sense.
Stroll would not have expected a clash between Cowell and Newey, but he got one, so another change was made.
Each change is understandable in isolation. But success in F1 is founded on stability not disruption and there has been little evidence of that at either team for the past two or three years.