F1 test, an Audi in difficulty In the Montmeló shakedown, Audi made its debut on the track with its brand, completing the journey that led the old Sauber to represent the four circles in F1. However, the Germans had to deal with an uphill start, marked by several technical problems that affected the planned work. The first outings on the track were broken up, with early returns to the pits and long breaks necessary for checks and interventions on the car. A situation that prevented the programs for the five-day Catalan race from being continuously followed, forcing the team to focus more on solving problems than on mileage, not to mention performance. The kilometers traveled were certainly lower than expected, and the data collection also proved to be less complete than hoped. Nothing alarming, however, because shakedowns and tests serve precisely to correct the defects of the new generation cars in time. And therefore the head of the F1 project Mattia Binotto prefers to see the positive side of the work carried out in Catalonia. Binotto’s words “From these days I carry with me the emotion of the first test. For us it is the beginning of our experience as a team, as power unit producers. I would say that there is a lot to learn and we are learning a lot. On day 1 many problems stopped us, slowing down the program also on the second day. Today we still had some learning problems, but we still covered a few kilometers and collected precious data for the team”, these are the words of the engineer from Reggio Emilia. “We are all very happy. It is a fantastic project, in which we are all committed, but we also know that we have a lot to grow,” he added. “I think we’re doing well. Reliability is always very important, but the problems we’ve had have been small, not dramatic. I think Bortoleto is quite satisfied after this morning’s practice, he was very eager to do several laps after having covered very few kilometers on the first day. Gabi and Nico will have to do a lot of work in the simulator, together with the team, to get all the details right. We have a very long list, I’ve never seen such a long list, but the team is really willing to improve and arrive in Bahrain in good shape. better.”
