audi-nico-hulkenberg-2026-hungarian-grand-prixAudi has had a surprisingly solid start to life in Formula 1, but clear potential hasn’t always translated into tangible results – will that change in the second half of the F1 2026 season? The former Sauber team clearly has a tidy car, but operational snafus and a persistently superior Racing Bulls squad have resulted in the Hinwil outfit perhaps being the team with the least representative points score of them all. Audi F1’s 2026 debut shows progress beyond the points table Sauber offered some hope that Audi could hit the ground running strongly in 2026, with the final car under the previous ownership becoming a regular points scorer – particularly for Nico Hulkenberg as the German driver racked up 51 points and even scored his maiden podium. But the winter represented a huge reset: not only in terms of the regulations, but for Sauber itself as it was formally taken over by Audi as the German automotive giant entered the sport as a manufacturer, as both a power unit maker and the chassis. The points certainly haven’t flowed in the first half of 2026 as they did in ’25, but there’s no sense that this has been a step back in performance for the Swiss squad. The car is a competent and solid midfield performer, perhaps even the best chassis in F1 outside of the top four, but a mixture of other factors has come together to paint the team’s headline results in a different light than what has been the reality – the most persistent of which was trouble getting the car off the line upon lights out. But, speaking at the Belgian Grand Prix, Audi racing director Allan McNish spoke of how the team has come out of the blocks well and has been “pretty quick overall.” “We’ve had a few reliability issues and the beginning of the season was quite tough, but really from Canada onwards we started to get a bit of control over that, so to be able to show the performance,” he said. “In the last three races, really from Monaco onwards, we’ve been knocking on the door of points. “It was pretty frustrating at times going home without them on a few occasions, especially if I think of Barcelona, where Nico was stunning and then a pretty freak incident took him out of the race. “So, from that perspective, it is nice to get some points on the board and just to solidify, and also to prove to ourselves to a great extent, that we can actually deliver it. “But to do that, we needed to improve in our process as well. We needed to improve in our race operations, which we’ve been doing slowly, I would say, step by step and race by race, to the point we are now. I think we’re quite comfortable with where we are.” If all the top four teams finish with both cars, there are really only two points places up for grabs in 2026 and, frustratingly for Audi, Racing Bulls has delivered on a more consistent basis to keep Audi out of these positions – but they have been able to fight over them on a regular basis. Momentum has been growing on Audi’s side and, having gone seven weekends without a single point after Australia, Hungary marked three consecutive points finishes in a row. “Silverstone is where I suppose we broke our duck,” McNish said. “We understood how to get the performance out of the car better, and the second thing is the drivers got confidence, and the team got confidence as well, and then we were able to take advantage of situations that arose. “What is quite clear is that we are fighting directly with Racing Bulls. I think we’ve got a very similar pace. It just depends on whether they’re a little bit ahead or we’re a little bit ahead. “I think, in qualifying, they’ve got a little bit of an advantage and, in the race, we’ve got an advantage, but we’re behind them.” With Alpine slipping out of that midfield battle in recent races, having been in the mix with Racing Bulls and Audi over the first third of the season, McNish said the aim is to ensure consistent delivery in the second half. “We are fighting in that midfield area, and it’s to try to consistently be there, chipping at it,” McNish said. “It depends, I think, a little bit circuit to circuit whether we’re ahead of one or behind, but ultimately, we need to be making sure that we’re delivering whatever the package can deliver each weekend. That’s the goal. Where it is relative, in terms of fighting in the top 10 or just outside it, that depends on the competition as well as us.” A key aspect to remember about Audi’s year is that this season, as well as 2027, are being treated as feet-finding missions, streamlining operations and efficiencies in the organisation as the German giant learns about F1. It’s for this reason that its power unit deficit, which both McNish and Mattia Binotto have been transparent about, isn’t giving any cause for concern: at the first time of asking, Audi simply wasn’t expecting to deliver the benchmark unit and, instead, wants to ensure a strong and stable baseline of understanding from which it can grow in proficiency. After all, the FIA’s Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities [ADUO] system also gives lagging manufacturers such as Audi the chance to close the gap. Having been granted two ADUO allowances at the first checkpoint of ’26, Audi had planned around this development avenue as it rolled out an engine update at the next race, with Binotto expanding upon this when he spoke that weekend. “For Audi, it will be a significant benefit. I think it’s what we were expecting,” he said. “Since the very start of the season, we knew that most of our gap to the top teams was on the power unit side. Not a surprise to us. Hard work will be required. We’ve got plans, but it will be beneficial, but not in the short term. “Often, maybe people believe that once you’ve got ADUO, maybe the race after you may introduce 10 kilowatts. That’s not what will happen. “In our case, we are looking for a big development, but more in the medium and long term. We are focusing our efforts more on the medium and the long term again, and the ADUO will be beneficial in that respect. “So ADUO means more budget cap, means more dyno hours, more freedom on development. But again, not everything sometimes is in the short term. Our journey is a long journey. “We have set an objective by 2030. So as well, when it comes to car development, power unit development, especially the power units, it takes time to develop, longer than maybe some chassis parts. Again, our plans are set. We will not see immediate benefits from the ADUO, but then it will certainly be beneficial for us.” With F1 2030 earmarked by Audi’s top brass, including CEO Gernot Dollner, as the year in which a championship challenge is the target, the quietly competent start in 2026 sends all the right messages and should be taken as a warning shot for the currently established leading teams. More analysis from F1 2026 so far How have the drivers performed this season? Gabriel Bortoleto has had the better run of things so far in 2026, but the season started with difficulties for both drivers as the larger turbo on the Audi R26 meant poor starts marred opportunities to capitalise on decent qualifying positions. Hulkenberg’s year started with a mechanical issue even before the grid in Australia, and he’s suffered three further retirements due to technical issues – four retirements from 11 races – with the most galling of these being a bizarre retirement in Spain when a stone flicked up from Liam Lawson’s car struck the engine cut-off switch on Hulkenberg’s car. Lawson went on to finish eighth, hinting at what might have been for the German driver without this issue. But a well-executed race in Hungary finally saw Hulkenberg get off the mark, courtesy of a ninth-place finish as he separated the two Racing Bulls drivers. For Bortoleto, the Brazilian’s sophomore year has seen him make significant strides, with him being one of very few drivers to voice positivity about the new power unit regulations and the effects they’ve had on the requirements of a driver to go quickly. Like Hulkenberg, Bortoleto also had a DNS as he missed out on the Chinese Grand Prix due to a technical issue, which was followed up by a string of close-but-not-quite points finishes between Japan and Austria. In the middle of this run, Bortoleto was hard on himself at the Monaco Grand Prix, a track at which Audi looked to have genuine competitiveness. But the Brazilian felt he overdrove in his excitement during qualifying, leading to him smacking the barriers at the chicane, and leaving him despairing with himself as a consequence. Having managed ninth place in Australia, he capitalised on Audi’s increased competitiveness in recent races to secure back-to-back eighth places in Britain and Belgium, before Hulkenberg took over as the Audi points scorer in Hungary. While Bortoleto may have five times the points of Hulkenberg, with 10 points to two, it’s been closer than the standings suggest, and there’s little reason to doubt both can’t continue to trouble the lower points places in the second half. “I think we’re very fortunate, to be honest with you, with Nico and Gabi, because they complement each other very well,” McNish said of the driver line-up. “Different eras of their careers, I would say. With Nico especially, we’ve got someone who has a lot of experience, gets out there and still delivers it in a race situation, and we’ve seen that now on multiple occasions. Super good. “On the other side of it, Gabi’s getting stronger every single weekend, and I think we’ve got a nice little balance between the two. As I stand here today, I think actually, for us and where we are, it is the perfect combination.” What next for Audi? Realistically, Audi can’t hope for much more than what it is achieving right now, aside from perhaps more regularly besting the Racing Bulls team and establishing itself as the fifth-best team on the grid. Its current eighth-place championship position is indicative of its first half struggles to turn potential into results, but the indications are there that it is now in a better position to more capably deliver through the second half. “I think it’s clear that we have a chassis that is very strong; it’s not a championship-winning chassis yet, you know, 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,” Bortoleto offered as an assessment of the team’s first car. It’s an assessment Hulkenberg has shared, who has said the engine is the main stumbling point at this moment, although it hasn’t stopped Audi from being competitive in the midfield. “It’s also clear from the ADUO that we have a deficit on the engine,” Bortoleto said. “It’s clear that we are losing quite a lot per lap. I think Mattia already mentioned in the past more than a second, depending on the track, and this is not an exaggeration. “This is the truth about where we are standing, and it’s normal, because it’s the first season of our engine. We develop everything in-house with people who have been at Audi for many years now. “So I think that the place where we have the most margin to improve is definitely the engine.” But Audi won’t get caught up in the excitement of its potential at this early point of what is a multi-season plan to reach the front, but Bortoleto has pointed to how the former Sauber team now has everything it needs to become a front-runner, but will need time to realise this potential. “We shouldn’t even create this expectation, because I don’t think it’s fair, first of all, because it’s a big gap; it’s not two, three tenths that you find when you finetune this or that, but I think it’s a long-term thing, and it has always been clear,” he said. “This is a project of many years, and I think to put a car to win a championship, it takes time. “Look how many top teams have been trying to win championships; you see many top teams trying to win for decades, and they cannot win races, or they cannot win championships, and it’s normal, because the championship is very competitive. “So I think we need time. I think we have the structure, we have the money, we have everything we need, the people to win; we just need time to develop, because racing is not like tennis or football, where you can change things quickly. “The manufacturing parts take a crazy amount of lead time to be ready to develop, to be tested, to put on track, and we need to be patient in that sense, but I already asked for a plan for the team, and I see the plan in this medium-to-long term very clearly. “So I’m confident that we’re going to be fighting very soon.” PlanetF1.com half-season rating: 5/10 Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists. You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!