Wheatley will be replaced by Emilia Abel as junior road sport director and supported by Dieter Rencken, who moves across from his Formula 1 role into an executive advisor role, and both will report to FIA general manager Alberto Villarreal.
Abel, also an FIA steward, had previously served as road sport deputy director and head of off-road categories. She was also president of the FIA road sport committee and vice president of the FIA's closed road commission, and is head of the Estonian Autosport Union Rally Committee and Clerk of the Course of the Ypres Rally.
Wheatley's sudden departure comes in the wake of several personnel changes and upheaval at the FIA in recent weeks.
The former M-Sport employee joined the FIA in 2019 as the WRC category manager before earning promotion to the rally director role in 2022 after former Citroen WRC boss Yves Matton left the position in December 2021 after playing an instrumental role in ushering in the WRC's Rally1 regulations launched in 2022. Wheatley's role morphed into the road sport director position this year.
This latest departure follows a number of high-profile exits from the FIA, following last week's exits of Formula 2 race director Janette Tan and long-time FIA race steward Tim Mayer.
Last month Formula 1 race director Neils Wittich also left the organisation, and in October the governing body parted ways with director of communications Luke Skipper and secretary general of mobility Jacob Bangsgaard.
Late last year both sporting director Steve Nielsen and single-seater technical director Tim Goss resigned, while head of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission Deborah Mayer also left. The FIA's first CEO Natalie Robyn also quit the organisation in May after less than two years in the role.
Prior to working for the FIA, Wheatley worked in the Belgian and Polish rally championships, before taking up a business development role at British rally squad M-Sport in 2005 after joining the company in 1999.
It was in this position that Wheatley was involved in M-Sport's S2000, R2 and R5 programmes alongside its racing projects with Bentley in GT3 racing and the now defunct Jaguar I-Pace Trophy.
Wheatley has been ever present at WRC rounds overseeing the category and has been heavily involved in helping the discipline forge its future pathway this year, including the formation of the 2027 regulations, due to be released at next week's World Motor Sport Council. The rally veteran was also part of the FIA's WRC Commission.
"It has been a privilege and an education to work as part of the FIA team and witness the hard work and dedication of not only my colleagues, but the innovation, ingenuity and bravery of the competitors and the incredible commitment of the promoters," Wheatley said.
"I also want to pay tribute to the event organisers and the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who work so tirelessly to support events, manage challenges and make the sport accessible to fans around the world, week in, week out.
"I am confident that the work being done now in the rally and off-road environments will create a very strong foundation for the future and we have every reason to be positive moving forward."
