Audi rues missed SQ3 chance at Silverstone

Audi missed SQ3 in British Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying at Silverstone as Gabriel Bortoleto took 12th and Nico Hülkenberg 13th, but the team came away convinced a place in the top 10 was there to be had.

That was the clear reading inside the team after Friday’s running. Allan McNish, Audi Revolut F1 Team Racing Director, said Audi’s pace in the only practice session had been in line with expectations and strong enough to challenge for SQ3. After getting through SQ1 comfortably, he said, “neither car managed to put together the cleanest lap in SQ2,” leaving the team “slightly below where we felt we could have been.”

Bortoleto believed the gap on the timesheet exaggerated the deficit. Audi ended up about three tenths away, but he said Racing Bulls “are quicker than us, but not by three tenths” and argued Audi would have been closer if it had saved its one-lap tyre set until later in the session. “With hindsight it’s easy to say,” he said, but the way the run was managed left time on the table.

Hülkenberg pointed to changing conditions as another reason Audi failed to convert its underlying pace. He said the Sprint Qualifying session was “windier and gustier than it was this morning” and that the team “paid the price,” particularly in the first sector. He added that Audi had also taken “a slightly different approach with our run plan,” which the team would need to review overnight before Saturday’s qualifying.

The frustration lands in the middle of a longer wait for points. Audi has not scored again since the season opener in Australia, with Bortoleto finishing 11th in each of the last three races. He described those near-misses as bitter, but also said they reflected the team reaching its current maximum more consistently as cleaner weekends replace the technical setbacks that marked the start of its season.

That is why Silverstone matters beyond one missed SQ3 appearance. Audi believes its recent R26 updates have moved the car forward, and Hülkenberg said the changes had “definitely worked” even if a more meaningful read would come from another high-speed track and from the rest of the Silverstone weekend. With the Sprint still to come and Grand Prix qualifying later on Saturday, Audi sees this as another chance to turn improved pace into the result it has been missing.