The Audi Formula 1 team have been chasing points since their ninth place in the season opener in Australia, and thus you might assume that missing out by one position for the fifth time in 2026 would be frustrating.
In fact, Racing Director Allan McNish believes that the P11 and P12 for Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg in Austria represented the best weekend so far for the Hinwil outfit.
The Red Bull Ring is a track that is heavily power unit dependent, and Audi are well aware that they have a significant deficit – benchmarked at a second a lap at some venues by Team Principal Mattia Binotto.
And yet in a race when no one ahead retired the Audis finished just outside the points, beaten in the midfield battle only by Racing Bulls.
Encouragingly, after a run that has seen a few non-starts and technical issues, the R26s ran like clockwork and a significant aero upgrade package did what it was supposed to do.
Given the restrictions of the PU, the team can now be confident that when they go to circuits where sheer horsepower is less critical, they will have a strong package.
“To be honest, I think it was our best weekend so far in terms of all the runs through Free Practice, Qualifying, race, getting the maximum out of the car,” said McNish.
“Performance around this circuit was always going to be a little bit trickier, although we brought the upgrades, and they actually tallied up pretty well. But the VCARBs were quicker. End of story. And once they’re ahead, it’s very difficult to race them. Not very much happened in the race itself. So both Gabi and Nico, I thought, drove very, very well.”
McNish was adamant that the drivers could not have performed any better with what they had, and the fact that they finished close together suggested that there wasn’t much more in the tank.
“They delivered everything out of it, and so there wasn’t really much else that we could have done beyond where we are at the moment,” said McNish. “I think that especially around here with the nature of the track and the nature of where our performance lies, that was what it was.
“Hence, the reason that, yes, I am quite happy, because it was a big step forward. Again, if you think back just a couple of races ago, it was another step in the right direction. But now we need to maintain that sort of level of performance in terms of execution, getting the maximum out of it, and then when things are a little bit more in our favour, to take the advantage of it.”
Work is continuing apace at the Audi power unit facility in Neuberg, but it will take time for significant developments to make it to the track.
“We know where we are,” said McNish. “It is the first power unit we’ve built. It is, I think, pretty robust now we’ve got a few of the initial teething things out of the way, and we’re making steps forward.
“Some of it will be more longer-term. But we were able to bring in some things for Barcelona, which definitely helped us small amount, and we’re making other adaptations that we can within the regulations as they are at the moment.”
The other good news in Austria was that the drivers made their best starts of the year, something that has been an Achilles heel up to now.
“Starts are not our strongest point,” McNish admitted. “We have worked quite hard to try and maximise what we’ve got, but there’s certain areas that we’re not going to be able to do too much about at the moment. What we saw [Sunday], I thought, was a good start from both drivers actually, Nico and Gabi.
“You’ve got hardware and you’ve got software, but we’re always trying to adapt and improve on it, and it’s not as if you’ve got a lot of opportunities to practice these things. But there I think we will, I would say, minimise the negative of it right now, and that put us in a good position.”
McNish is upbeat about prospects for Silverstone: “It’s more in line with a Barcelona-esque type of place. And if I look at where we are with our performance and relative speed corners, relative straights, et cetera, then it should fit a little bit more in the Barcelona side than it would do here [Austria].”
