Complicated start
The start of Audi’s debut season in Formula 1 has not been easy. The House of the Rings has experienced some internal turmoil, with the sudden resignation of team principal Jonathan Wheatley effectively allowing all the team’s power to be centralized in the hands of Mattia Binotto. Even on track, however, the results of the R26 have not been particularly good.
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After the first three rounds of the championship, Audi has in fact earned just two points – the same as Williams – and is eighth in the Constructors’ standings, ahead of only Cadillac and Aston Martin. Too little for a team that in reality has shown to be particularly competitive over a single lap, so much so that in two out of three qualifying sessions, a car from the Hinwil team entered Q3.
Problems at the start
The car in the hands of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto would also be reasonably fast on race pace, but the big problem is represented by the starts. Already in the pre-season tests in Bahrain, it had emerged that the getaway when the lights went out for the German cars was too slow. At Suzuka during the first lap Bortoleto slipped from ninth to 13th position and Hülkenberg from 13th to 19th.
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Mattia Binotto confirmed the existence of a problem related to the power unit that also affects the starting procedure, but for the moment the solution seems far away: “It is our main problem. We discovered that the biggest gap compared to the top teams is due to the power unit, which did not surprise us – explained the head of the Audi project to the German media – we cannot draw hasty conclusions now, but it is clear that there is a problem with the energy and also with the way we use it. We need patience – the former Ferrari team principal concluded – we are very ambitious and ideally we would like to solve the problems in a few races, but it is not possible”.
It will be interesting to see if the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia events will help Audi to arrive in Miami with some corrections to help them at the start.
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