Audi has revealed an official goal of winning the Formula 1 world championship by 2030.
The German brand is tackling its first ever F1 campaign amid a technical overhaul, and has set an admittedly vague five-year plan for the upcoming seasons.
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“Our goal is to win championships by 2030,” Audi’s press kit read as the team unveiled its first livery on Tuesday. “We have a structured plan for a deliberate ascent.
“Our journey begins as a challenger, where we will establish our processes and fight for points. We will evolve into a competitor, consolidating our strengths to consistently compete for podiums. The next phase is to become a champion, a unified, winning force.”
Although F1 arguably is more competitive than ever, the team not only believes this is a realistic prospect – its members are hoping to do even better.
“Hopefully, we achieve that before 2030,” Gabriel Bortoleto enthusiastically suggested. “Obviously, we have seen other competitors that entered F1 and took many years as well. It’s not going to be an easy task.
“We are building our own power unit. We are not joining as just a car manufacturer, we are building everything from scratch. So, it’s definitely not going to be easy, and there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Audi F1 Team R26 livery
Photo by: Audi
The scale of the challenge hasn’t got lost on anyone at Hinwil and Neuburg. The Sauber team, which Audi has taken over, finished just ninth in the constructors’ championship last year; it is now all about improving the team’s infrastructure and hiring top engineers – hence why Audi is giving itself time to succeed.
“We’ve got a final objective: 2030. And we need to set milestones, intermediate stations on our climbing to the top of the mountain,” said Mattia Binotto, head of the Audi F1 project, explaining the above roadmap.
“We discussed internally what should be the objective for ‘26, what should be our first milestone – and should we measure it in terms of ranking in the championship, in terms of number of points scored at the end of the season, should we say we should score more points than in ‘25, knowing that now it’s a brand-new team, a brand-new powertrain, a brand-new regulation?
“And finally, we decided differently. We decided that for us the most important thing in ‘26 is to become a serious competitor, and that’s about behaviours, it’s about perception. I would be very happy if, by the end of the season, the other teams will see and perceive the F1 team as a strong competitor for the future.”
Coming in as a new engine maker with such complex power units alongside the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari, which have substantial experience with the previous, similar formula, is a tall order – which, as a former head of the engine department in Maranello, Binotto is well aware of.
“We’ve got all the means to become one day successful, and becoming the benchmark for the powertrain as well,” the Italian added. “So, I’m not expecting our powertrain to be the best since the very start. That would be impossible, that would be unrealistic.
“We are really focused on ourselves, staying humble. We know that we may face problems during the season, we may face reliability issues or failures. But what will count the most for me is, again, the team reacting properly. It’s no stones unturned, learning from the problems, showing capacity in progressing.”
Jonathan Wheatley, Audi F1 Team
Photo by: Christopher Otto
The bottom line is, Audi won’t win in 2026. Nobody expects it to, not even its sponsors. “They understand that it’s not going to happen tomorrow,” team principal Jonathan Wheatley said. “Mattia actually said earlier, we might say we want to win championships in 2030, but we want to win them before that. But I think you just have to be realistic about the journey that you’re on.”
A good reason to play expectations down would be how things unravelled for the latest team to set a five-year plan of sorts: Alpine announced a 100-race plan in late 2021 and finished dead last in the 2025 constructors’ championship.
Asked whether the 2030 timeline was an open goal for criticism, Binotto replied: “Maybe I should even be more precise. What we said and what we have set as an objective is aiming to fight for a championship by 2030. Obviously there are competitors out there, and they are very strong, so you cannot simply decide that you will be the winner.
“But certainly we have to be in a position where we can aim to fight for a championship. Aiming to fight means somehow that you have developed the team, so in terms of infrastructures, tools, methodologies, process, whatever, organisation, you are strong enough to compete for it. I think that’s exactly what we are aiming for.”
As to whether Nico Hulkenberg will still be around, the German, who will turn 43 in 2030, reckoned: “I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but it’s not something that I think about now. I don’t have that grand plan of ‘I want to stop then’. As long as I’m happy, as long as the stopwatch is good, the employer is happy; as long as that’s the case, I will keep going.”
Photos from Audi launch
Audi launch, in photos
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