When Audi announced its long-awaited foray into Formula 1 in 2022, Australian Adam Baker took to the stage north of Madrid, near the Jarama circuit, and addressed the world as the undisputed leader of a project that, in his own words, aspired to compete for the World Cup from 2028. Three years later, neither Baker nor the team director, Andreas Seidl, nor the chairman of the board of directors, Olivier Hoffmann, I’m still in charge. the organizational chart. of the German automotive giant, which last year changed its timetable to hand over the keys to the brand to former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto and Briton Jonathan Wheatley, key to Red Bull’s meteoric rise since 2010.
“The team was different at the beginning, yes, but we realized that if you want to play in the Champions League, you need Champions League level coaches, so when the opportunity arose to incorporate Jonathan and Mattia we were very clear about it,” says Jurgen Rittersberger, Audi’s financial director, flanked by his two trusted men in a hotel on the outskirts of Munich, where the brand is presenting to the international press the car with which it will debut next year at the Grand Circus.
It will not be driven by Carlos Sainz, who, confident in the projection of the Mercedes engine, last summer chose Williams ahead of Alpine and the exciting German project, where, they say, they hoped to build a future based on the talent of the Spanish driver. Having rejected Sainz, Audi wanted to form a couple that combined experience and youth, so they hired the German Nico Hülkenberg, 38 years old and with more than 250 Grands Prix under his belt; and the Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto, student of Fernando Alonso – he is represented by the Asturian agency – and making his debut this season, at the age of 21, in Formula 1.
The objective of both, Wheatley underlines, will be to adapt, look to the future and “build stability with the car”. Winning, however, is still far away. “We had long and long discussions to establish our real goal, but we came to the conclusion that 2030 is a realistic goal to start fighting for the World Cup,” explains Binotto smiling. “Obviously, if we can start winning sooner, we’ll try.”
In any case, far from the penetrating green of the Sauber, Audi’s predecessor on the current grid, the German brand’s car will debut with a design with sober and straight lines divided into three colours: black, red, with a shade, they say, created from scratch for the occasion; and the metallic gray that in Neuburg, headquarters of the automotive giant to which EL PAÍS had access, coins such as titanium. “We want it to be our matrix color,” they say. “The idea is that our Formula 1 R26 is so easy to recognize that if a child sees it and closes their eyes they will be able to remember it and draw it without any problems.” However, there is no chromatic inspiration in the German flag. “Here we are very cautious on this issue,” they conclude with a certain modesty.
Audi’s entry into the Great Motoring Circus will also coincide with the definition of the new regulations, which many highlight as the most drastic change ever experienced on the grid. For starters, the per-team spending limit will increase from $165 million to $215 million. Furthermore, the cars will be lower and narrower than the current ones and will have much more electronic load in the engines, which will translate into greater agility when overtaking and, ultimately, the beginning of a journey in which all teams start from scratch. “Next year there could be many surprises,” confess some Audi engineers in Munich, aware that there is no better time than now to delve into what they define as the “pinnacle” of the engine. “This is another level,” he sums up. “There’s nothing like Formula 1.”
Maximum secrecy in Neuburg
Leaving Munich behind heading north, and before reaching Ingolstadt, the thick fog opens up on Highway 9 to discover, among the cold Bavarian plain, the Neuburg circuit, Audi headquarters where 430 people work hard every day to design the best possible engine for Hülkenberg and Bortoleto.
At the entrance to the warehouse, an immense vertical display case boasts the successes of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the DTM, Formula E and the Dakar Rally, that is, in all the disciplines of motor sports except one, Formula 1. Next to the showcase – the past – a large screen continues the countdown, second by second, until March 8 – the future – the day on which the brand with the four rings will start its engines at the 2026 Australian Grand Prix.
In Neuburg, however, secrecy is maximum. “The boundary between what we can teach and what we cannot show is very thin,” warn Audi managers before entering a warehouse with high ceilings, white corridors and gigantic doors that open only after swiping their cards. Nothing that is done there can be recorded or photographed. So confidential is the room in which the engine of the new Audi F1 is designed.
“When the driver is racing, everything comes here at the same time, faster than any television,” they say of the control room, a cinema-like cabin where 35 engineers analyze every movement in detail. “Every little particle of fuel matters, every little vertex of material matters,” he summarizes. “The technology of this ship allows us to manipulate our parts down to the micrometer, which is 30 times less than the thickness of a human hair. We have been working on this for months. And be careful, not only looking at 2026, but also 2027 and 2028.” The future is already here.
