F1 2026: Meet the 11 team principals

Of the 11 F1 teams in 2026, only 10 have officially designated team principals. 

Below, RacingNews365 takes a look at who is running each of the teams, including newcomers Cadillac and Audi, as F1 heads into an all-new era!

Should one leave their job over the course of this season, this article will be updated accordingly.

Andrea Stella - McLaren

Place and date of birth - Orvieto, Italy - 22nd February, 1971

When started as team principal - 13th December 2022

Andrea Stella first joined McLaren back in 2015 as head of race operations, following Fernando Alonso from Ferrari, where he had been the Spanish driver's race engineer.

He was promoted up through the ranks to racing director in 2019 under the stewardship of Andreas Seidl and CEO Zak Brown as McLaren began to pull itself out of the doldrums of the mid-2010s. 

Seidl would leave at the end of 2022 to return to the Volkswagen camp to head up Audi's transition for its 2026 entry, meaning Brown promoted Stella to team principal.

The affable Italian then guided the team to its first constructors' championship since 1998 in 2024, before helping to guide Lando Norris to the drivers' title in 2025 as McLaren retained its constructors' title in a first championship double since 1998. 

Toto Wolff - Mercedes

Place and date of birth - Vienna, Austria - January 12th, 1972

When started as team principal - joined Mercedes in 2013

Toto Wolff's first entry to F1 was actually with Williams as a director in 2009 and was present when Pastor Maldonado won the 2012 Spanish GP, Williams' last win to date.

By 2013, Wolff was on the move to Mercedes, working under Ross Brawn, but it would never last with Brawn leaving at the end of the year, with Mercedes splitting the traditional team principal role.

Wolff assumed all business and commercial matters, with Paddy Lowe focusing on matters technical, for the first three seasons of the turbo hybrid era, which the team dominated.

Lowe's exit at the end of 2016 allowed for a more familiar structure to take place, with Wolff guiding the team to a total of 15 of 16 titles between 2014 and 2021. 

Since 2022, he has been trying to guide the team back to championship contention after being tripped up by the ground-effect rules, with the team entering F1's new era in 2026 as title favourites, given the revelation of an engine trick which could hand Mercedes powered car a huge advantage.

Laurent Mekies - Red Bull Racing

Place and date of birth - Tours, France - April 28th, 1977

When started as team principal - July 9th, 2025

Laurent Mekies has had quite a journey in F1.

He started off at Arrows in 2000, before moving to Toro Rosso (now Racing Bulls) as chief engineer, leaving in 2014 to join the FIA as safety director. 

By 2018, he was on the move again to Ferrari, eventually rising to deputy team principal when his old team, now AlphaTauri, came calling as part of a management refresh with Franz Tost heading into retirement.

Mekies assumed Tost's role for 2024, with the team called Visa Cash App RB, but in mid-2025, he was moved up to the senior team to replace the sacked Christian Horner.

Under his guidance, Max Verstappen roared back into title contention, eventually finishing just two points behind champion Lando Norris. 

Fred Vasseur - Ferrari

Place and date of birth - Draveil, France - 28th May, 1968

When started as team principal - 13th December, 2022

Starting in the role the same day as Stella at McLaren, Frederic Vasseur was hired to knock a Ferrari team into shape after a season under Mattia Binotto in which it had the fastest car, but operational errors cost it dearly.

The jovial Vasseur spoiled Red Bull's perfect 2023 with a Ferrari victory in Singapore and mounted the team's best title charge since 2012 in '24 for the constructors'. 

For the first time since 2012, Ferrari went into the final race with a chance of winning a world championship - the constructors' - but its five wins were not quite enough to topple McLaren. 

However, Ferrari was not able to continue this strong form in 2025, despite the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, with the team slipping to fourth under Vasseur's leadership, going without a win as Hamilton struggled badly to adapt, going without a podium for the first time in his career.

James Vowles - Williams

Place and date of birth - Felbridge, UK - June 20th, 1979

When started as team principal - January 13th, 2023

A trusted lieutenant of Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes as strategy director, Vowles got his chance to step up in 2023 after Jost Capito left Williams.

Under his guidance, Vowles has tried to re-mould Williams and fundamentally change the team's methods, most famously finding that crucial parts of the car build process were being done on an Excel Spreadsheet.

He managed to lure Carlos Sainz for 2025, with he and Alex Albon combining for Williams' best result with fifth place in the standings since third in 2015, Sainz scoring two podiums to mark the start of the Williams resurgence.

Alan Permane - Racing Bulls

Place and date of birth - Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, UK - February 4th, 1967.

When started as team principal - July 9th, 2025.

Long-time F1 stalwart Alan Permane is best known for his long spell at Team Enstone through its Benetton, Renault, Lotus, Renault, and Alpine guises, but was removed in mid-2023 from his role as sporting director. 

He moved to Racing Bulls as racing director in early 2024, and after the promotion of Mekies to replace Horner, Permane was named as team principal of the Faenza-based team, the first time he had held such a position after nearly 40 years in F1.

Adrian Newey - Aston Martin

Place and date of birth - Colchester, Essex, UK - December 26th, 1958

When started as team principal - January 1st, 2026.

Aston Martin was successful in luring Newey away from his chief techincal officer role at Red Bull, with the legendary designer beginning work at Silverstone in spring 2025.

Most of his attention was on the radical rule changes for 2026, with his role being managing technical partner.

In late 2025, team principal Andy Cowell was moved sideways to focus more on the engine integration with Honda, given his Mercedes history, with Newey stepping up to also cover the team principal portfolio for the first time. 

Ayao Komatsu - Haas

Place and date of birth - Tokyo, Japan - January 28th, 1976

When started as team principal - January 10th, 2024

Ayao Komatsu first started in F1 in 2003 with BAR (which is Mercedes today), before moving onto Renault and Lotus, rising to Romain Grosjean's race engineer and then chief race engineer.

He followed Grosjean to Haas for 2016, becoming trackside engineering chief for the new team, holding that position under Guenther Steiner's contract was not renewed for 2024.

Komatsu stepped up to the team principal role, and signed an all-new driver line-up for 2025, with Esteban Ocon partnering Oliver Bearman. 

The two combined for 79 points, Haas's second-best return in a season as the team also secured a major deal with Toyota, with the racing arm becoming the title sponsor in 2026.

Jonathan Wheatley - Audi

Place and date of birth - Beaconsfield, UK. May 7th, 1967. 

When started as team principal - April 1st, 2025. 

Long-time Red Bull sporting director Wheatley was named as team principal of Stake before its transition to Audi for 2026 in August 2024.

Red Bull agreed to release Wheatley early, and so took up his position after the first three races of the season, with Stake enjoying a surge of form under his leadership.

For the first time since the 2012 Japanese GP, the Hinwil team scored a podium courtesy of Nico Hulkenberg at the 2025 British GP; remarkably, Hulkenberg's first-ever podium in F1 after 239 attempts.

Wheatley is working closely alongside former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto as Audi prepares to enter grand prix racing for the first time. 

Alpine - no official team principal

Alpine does not have an official team principal in the traditional sense. 

Flavio Briatore inherited the duties of former team principal Oliver Oakes before his 2025 resignation, before Steve Nielsen was hired as managing director in mid-2025 to oversee the day-to-day running of the team, with Nielsen reporting to Briatore.

Graeme Lowdon - Cadillac

Place and date of birth - Corbridge, UK. April 23rd, 1965.

When started as team principal - December 5th, 2024.

For Cadillac's debut in F1 in 2026, former Marussia boss Graeme Lowdon will be the man in charge. 

After leaving Marussia in 2015, Lowdon had a spell with Manor Marussia in the FIA World Endurance Championship, before being named as the team principal for the then-unnamed General Motors F1 entry in late 2024.

This became Cadillac, with the team signing a deal for customer Ferrari power units as hiring Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez as its drivers.