The first one was good
The Audi’s historic Formula 1 debut it went very well. The former Sauber team, which has now become the official team of the Ingolstadt company, proved to be one of the best of the entire mid-group, placing its two single-seaters in tenth and 11th position. The best result was achieved by Gabriel Bortoleto, who took the liberty of gaining access to Q3, even if he was then unable to take part in the session due to a technical problem which suddenly ‘switched off’ his R26. Given the troubles shown by many of its direct competitors (Cadillac and Aston Martin above all), the Teutonic team has a lot to cheer about.
“It was an extremely encouraging qualifying session for the team – commented the team manager, Jonathan Wheatley – And seeing Gabi reach Q3 in her first race with the Audi Revolut F1 Team was a special moment for all of us. It’s a clear reflection of the hard work that has gone into building this program and getting us to this point. Unfortunately, we had a technical problem at the end of Gabi’s last lap which prevented him from participating in Q3 and Nico also had a small problem which affected his final lap in Q2. Overall, this is a very positive start for the team. It is encouraging in terms of performance and is testament to the collective effort of so many talented people across the organisation”.
The words of the pilots
For Bortoleto the only regret is that of not having been able to take advantage of his chances in Q3but fortunately the problem that stopped him should not have any repercussions in tomorrow’s GP: “It was a very positive qualifying for the team – declared the Brazilian – Being in the top ten in our first race weekend as an Audi team is something we can all be proud of, especially considering the amount of work done over the winter to fine-tune this car to make it competitive and to build a new power unit from scratch. Certain, it was frustrating not to be able to take part in Q3 after getting there. We still don’t know exactly what caused the problem at the end of qualifying: I started losing gears mid-lap and wasn’t able to pit, so it’s a problem we’ll analyze with the team. From what we’ve seen so far, It doesn’t seem like a serious problem and we hope to be able to resolve it by tomorrow. The car showed good potential. I don’t think many expected to see us fighting for a top-10 position so soon, so it’s a very encouraging start. Now the focus is on tomorrow. Starting from tenth position gives us a good opportunity and we hope to be able to have a good race and fight with the cars in front.”.
However, the team veteran was less satisfied, Nico Hulkenberg: “It was quite a challenging qualifying for us. We had a few things to manage at the start, so it took us a bit of time to find the rhythm. In the end I only had one clean lap attempt in Q2 and managed to put everything together wellwhich brings us to 11th place, a good starting point. There’s a lot going on in the cockpit with energy management, tires and traffic, so you have to stay hyper-focused on every lap, but we’re learning more every time we go out on track. Overall it’s a positive day for the team. Yesterday’s long runs were encouraging and we are in a good position for the race. With these new cars there are still a lot of unknowns, so tomorrow could be a rather open day and we will try to make the most of every opportunity“.
