Audi, the first smiles arrive: “After many kilometers, we are making progress”

Improvements in sight After the difficulties experienced in the shakedown tests in Barcelona, ​​the first smiles of 2026 finally arrive at Audi. The Hinwil team, which took Sauber’s place on the grid, had a positive day-1 in Bahrain. Not so much from the point of view of chronometric performances – Nico Hulkenberg set the ninth overall time of the day, Gabriel Bortoleto [che ha girato al mattino] the 15th – as far as reliability is concerned. In fact, Audi was the fourth team in terms of number of laps completed today on the Sakhir track, preceded only by Williams, Ferrari and Red Bull. 119 laps were completed by the R26, which also presented an interesting technical solution regarding the shape of the bellies. The words of the drivers “It was a day of great progress for us – commented Bortoleto with satisfaction at the end of the session – this morning we managed to clock up a good number of kilometers with the car and everything worked as expected, which is really encouraging. We focused on completing some laps to better understand the engine and the use of energy, especially in very different conditions to those we had in Barcelona. There is still a lot to do and we know that the road ahead is long, but we are making progress and will continue to push.” Good feelings were also experienced by Nico Hulkenberg, who lapped in the afternoon-evening session, therefore in track conditions more similar to those that will be found when we return to racing on this track in mid-April: “Overall for me it was a productive start to the tests – declared the German veteran – we completed many laps and collected a lot of useful data, exactly what we are here for. Bahrain is a very different circuit to Barcelona, which brought some new challenges and showed us what we need to focus on. Now there is a lot to do, but the direction is clear. I still have two days in the car, so we will continue working from here.”