{"id":439195,"date":"2026-01-26T20:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/439195\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:10:11","slug":"technical-issue-ended-audis-day-at-barcelona-f1-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/439195\/","title":{"rendered":"Technical issue ended Audi\u2019s day at Barcelona F1 test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A technical issue cut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/audi\/49022\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Audi<\/a>\u2019s day short as Formula 1\u2019s pre-season testing got under way in Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>A five-day \u2018shakedown\u2019 is taking place behind closed doors at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with teams allowed three days of running each between 26 and 30 January.<\/p>\n<p>Audi took over the Sauber outfit to enter the world championship for the first time in the German brand\u2019s history, coming in as a new power unit manufacturer as F1 revamps its engine regulations to place greater emphasis on electric energy.<\/p>\n<p>Audi\u2019s first F1 car, named R26, was first shaken down as early as 9 January at Barcelona. However, the first day of collective testing did not go well as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/gabriel-bortoleto\/950450\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> reportedly caused a red flag when he was struck by a technical issue around 11:30am local time, which ended Audi\u2019s day after the car covered just 27 laps \u2013 \u201ca bit of a short day,\u201d the Brazilian admitted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were doing a pretty decent job in the morning, putting some labs onboard, testing some things, we were going in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut as we all expect, this is a shakedown and everything can happen, and we expect to find issues here and there in the car. And we found a couple of problems that unfortunately put us out of the day, basically, from the morning already. So I didn&#8217;t run really much today.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/audi-r26-barcelona-test.jpg\" alt=\"Gabriel Bortoleto, Audi\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Gabriel Bortoleto, Audi<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Formula 1<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was expected, this type of things, you know, we&#8217;re finding everything now to not hopefully find it in the next test or even in the first race of the year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOverall, I would say when we were running, positive, good to have a few [laps] with the new car, the new regulations, power unit and everything. So hopefully on the next day I&#8217;m driving, I can get a few more laps on board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cRegarding the stoppage on track today, you know, as I said, it was a precaution thing as well. And we decided to not run until we fully understand, and to put the car back on track and have a clear run.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Audi did not specify what the problem actually was but insisted it would not reoccur, with a spokesperson for the team stating: \u201cWe detected an issue and decided to stop the car on track as a precaution.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have now identified the issue and we&#8217;ll fix it for the remainder of the week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bortoleto too expressed confidence that the problem wouldn\u2019t set the team back for its remaining two days of running at Barcelona: \u201cIt&#8217;s small things that we even expected to have already, you know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, it came a bit early and we couldn&#8217;t put everything in place to continue, but we&#8217;re going to analyse data, we&#8217;re going to understand how to not have these mistakes again \u2013 or these issues that we had in the car \u2013 and try to have smooth days and a lot of laps, because that&#8217;s what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read Also:<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A technical issue cut Audi\u2019s day short as Formula 1\u2019s pre-season testing got under way in Barcelona. A&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,40856,63,195711,79010,817,813,816,7695,85,228640],"class_list":["post-439195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-audi","tag-australia","tag-barcelona-catalunya-pre-season-testing","tag-circuit-de-barcelona-catalunya","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-gabriel-bortoleto","tag-sports","tag-technical-issue-ended-audiu2019s-day-at-barcelona-f1-test"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}