There has been no news yet on that front, with Aston hunting for someone to take responsibilities away from Adrian Newey to allow him to focus fully on designing and developing their cars, but yet to confirm a new signing. Meanwhile, at Audi, Mattia Binotto has temporarily taken over Wheatley’s duties in addition to his own as head of the F1 project.

But the former Ferrari team boss does not intend to keep them in the long-term and confirmed in Suzuka at the weekend: “Fill the gap? Yes, we need to fill the gap. I can’t, myself, simply add more and more responsibilities and tasks. My main focus is the factory base where we need to transform the team, where we develop the car and the powertrain.

“We need someone to support the team on race weekends. We are considering it. We will organise ourselves, and I’m pretty sure, very soon, we can announce it.” While it is unclear exactly when that will happen, Binotto did suggest in a separate interview that the plan is to restructure their leadership in the month-long gap created by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races.

He added: “We are not looking for a new [external] team principal. I now need to reorganise and analyse the team’s structures in more detail. There is so much to do at the factory – someone needs to support me with this.

“We have to develop the team and the car, and I need to be fully focused on my job. We are now considering how to reorganise ourselves. We have April free, which is a good opportunity to restructure. We have plenty of ideas for this.”

Wheatley had spoken publicly on many occasions about how much he was enjoying his role and living in Switzerland, having made the move from the UK after nearly two decades with Red Bull. So it was a surprise when it suddenly emerged that he was looking for a way to return home.

It is understood that Wheatley approached Gernot Dollner, the chief executive of the main Audi company, to explain his stance and request a mutual split. And that too caught Audi off guard, Binotto has said. He explained: “It came as a real surprise. Sometimes that’s just the way things go.

“Jonathan told us that he couldn’t commit to Audi in the long term for personal reasons. We can’t judge that, we have to respect it. As a result, we as a team decided to relieve him of his duties. Jonathan was very well integrated into the team and had a significant influence.”