Audi braced for rollercoaster as F1 debut looms large

Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley is bracing himself for a wild rollercoaster ride this year as the team prepares to embark on its debut season in F1.

The German manufacturing giant launched its maiden car, the R26, in Berlin on Tuesday, unveiling a silver, red and black design, as witnessed in a pre-launch show in December, but on this occasion with the car adorned with sponsors.

In taking over Sauber's old Hinwil factory in Switzerland, and constructing its first power unit to the new regulations from a new facility in Neuberg, these are tense times for the organisation as it goes head to head with the established names in F1.

Although targeting a championship by 2030, former Red Bull sporting director Wheatley knows the upcoming maiden campaign is going to be full of ups and downs, twists and turns, as the team grows accustomed to the new rules and beds itself into F1.

Assessing the target, speaking to RacingNews365 in a select media gathering ahead of the launch, Wheatley said: "Everyone is starting with a car that you're racing that year, so you set a target internally. You decide that.

"There are times when you track to that target very tightly, and you start to think you'll beat the target, and then there are other times when you have everything - good weeks and bad weeks as you get to understand your development process.

"For us now, it's about maximising the testing that we have before the first race, to try to understand the car as well as we can, and listen to the drivers and make sure our development goes in the right direction."

Audi to play wait and see

Like every team, it has been a quick turnaround to prepare for the regulations, which include the new power unit and associated aerodynamics, and which were only handed to the teams on January 1 last year.

Throughout last season, the majority of the teams quickly stopped development on the 2025 cars to focus on the 2026 rules, with Sauber naturally one of those.

For Audi, however, there was considerably more work involved as the team had to evolve, in tandem with integrating the new PU.

As to how he feels Audi will fare, Wheatley added: "Time will tell. There's some novel technology on the car, which the engineering group have been developing and looking at implementing for a while, but you just never know.

"Nobody's going to know where they are really until qualifying in Melbourne, and nobody's really going to start to know for sure until we're two, three races into the season as to just who has the package that can work everywhere.

"There are so many different elements of it, but still, you have a chassis, a powertrain and a driver, and it's about getting the best out of all of that."