Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Audi’s 2026 Formula 1 campaign has been defined by a clear contradiction: a car quick enough to hover around Q3 and the points, but a power-unit deficit of more than a second per lap that has left the team stuck on just two points.
Gabriel Bortoleto, who scored both of those points, said the chassis is stronger than the results suggest. Speaking to PlanetF1.com and others, the Audi driver said: “It’s clear that we have a chassis that is very strong.” He then pointed to the main limitation: “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.” Bortoleto added: “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.”
That helps explain why Audi’s opening weekend in Australia now stands out even more. On its debut, Bortoleto reached Q3 and finished ninth in what was seen internally as a hugely impressive start. Since then, Audi has not scored again, even though either Bortoleto or Nico Hulkenberg has finished 11th in five of the next six races, with the other race yielding a best finish of 12th.
Some of that has come down to the fine margins of the midfield, but two recent weekends sharpened the sense that Audi has left points behind. In Monaco, Hulkenberg finished ninth on the road after his qualifying had been compromised by aero damage, only for a penalty for a collision with Carlos Sainz to drop him to 13th. In Spain, Hulkenberg qualified ninth and was chasing Liam Lawson when a stone thrown up by Lawson struck the emergency kill switch and put the Audi out on the spot. Lawson went on to finish eighth.
Hulkenberg called Barcelona “a one-in-a-million incident,” and the frustration was shared by Allan McNish, Audi’s Racing Director, after the race. Speaking on Sunday in Barcelona, McNish said he was “certainly a bit frustrated after today” and “also after Monaco actually,” adding: “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.”
Even so, McNish argued Audi’s pace is real. He said: “All-in-all, we've got a performance level that is knocking on the door of Q3.” He added that the team’s qualifying form and underlying potential “will turn into results.”
That measured view runs through Audi’s wider assessment of its first season as a fully autonomous constructor and power-unit manufacturer after completing its takeover of the former Sauber operation over the winter. During the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, Audi CEO Gernot Dollner told select media, including PlanetF1.com, that the manufacturer remains on course for its longer-term target despite sitting ninth in the Constructors’ Championship.
“We are absolutely on that path; to be, for two years, the challenger, then the competitor, and then the fight for the championship target year 2030; that plan is still in place, and we are following it,” Dollner said. He also described the current season as “around where we are right now,” while conceding Audi would “love to have had more points in the last races.”
For now, that leaves Audi with an unusual early-season profile: competitive enough to be in the fight most Saturdays and Sundays, but still paying the price for a first-year engine program and a run of costly setbacks. If the team can turn that midfield pace into finishes that match it, its low points tally should start to look less like a true measure of performance and more like a delay in the timeline Audi insists is still on track.