Few teams faced as big a challenge as Audi heading into the 2026 Formula 1 season, given that the German manufacturer had to create its new power unit from scratch while also expanding and restructuring the former Sauber organisation.
In that context Audi’s debut in Australia was hugely impressive, with Gabriel Bortoleto making Q3 and finishing in the points in ninth. It was a start that no one in the team could have anticipated.
Since then things have been somewhat harder, and the team has failed to score any more points. However, it has been close – indeed either Bortoleto or team mate Nico Hulkenberg have finished P11 five times in six races, and in the other the best placed silver car was in P12.
It’s a record that doesn’t reflect the true potential of the Audi package, given both the pace the car has often shown and the fact that high attrition rates have opened up the points for the midfield teams.
The last two races alone saw priceless opportunities slip away for Hulkenberg. Having been compromised by aero damage in Monaco qualifying he did a great job in the race to finish ninth on the road, only to get a penalty for a collision with Carlos Sainz, which sent him tumbling down to 13th.
In Spain last weekend he qualified in P9 and was chasing Liam Lawson when, in a one-in-a-million occurrence, a stone thrown up by the Kiwi hit the emergency kill switch, and put him out of the race. Lawson went on to finish eighth.
The lost opportunities have been disappointing for everyone in the camp, not least Allan McNish, who took over the Racing Director role in April.
“Certainly a bit frustrated after today,” he said on Sunday in Barcelona. “And also after Monaco actually, because in Monaco we had another couple of points, but they were taken away with the penalty for Nico, which we think was a very harsh penalty. But the stewards’ decisions are the stewards’ decisions, so you have to accept them.
“All-in-all, we’ve got a performance level that is knocking on the door of Q3. And within time, these positive Qualifying performances, and the potential, will turn into results. It’s a case of focusing on the areas that we need to still work on to make sure that those happen.”
Audi’s focus on the power unit
It’s no secret that Audi’s power unit lags behind rivals, with Head of the Audi F1 project Mattia Binotto admitting that it could be costing as much as a second, and McNish concedes that it will take time to improve.
“We knew the first season of the power unit was always going to be difficult, building it from ground zero,” he said. “And I think there’s been definitely some areas where we’ve worked on it quite hard and improved quite a lot.
“We can optimise what we have at the moment. If you take a generalisation, hardware is obviously homologated, so there’s a limited amount of things that you can do. But we are definitely optimising and improving, and our consistency has been a lot better than what it was at the beginning of the season.”
Meanwhile the drivers are well aware that this is a long-term project, and progress will be made in steps.
“We are decent, we are competitive in the midfield,” Hulkenberg reflected. “But I think if you look at the top teams and the top cars, we’re not on that level, there’s still more work to do on the chassis and the aero side, for sure.
“With ADUO in place, there’s possibilities, there’s options, and back in the factory I know that they’re already working on mid-term, long-term solutions, and on different things, concepts of the engine.”
Bortoleto added: “It’s clear that we have a chassis that is very strong. It’s not a championship-winning chassis yet – we don’t have yet that car that, if we had a great engine in it, we would have been able to win races. But we have a chassis that is very competitive today.
“It’s clear also from the ADUO that we have a deficit on the engine, we are losing quite a lot per lap. I think Mattia already mentioned in the past more than a second – depending on the track – per lap.
“And this is not exaggerating, this is the truth about where we are standing, and it’s normal because it’s the first season of our engine.”
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