{"id":627849,"date":"2026-04-24T12:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627849\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T12:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:34:11","slug":"allan-mcnish-becomes-audis-f1-racing-director-with-immediate-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627849\/","title":{"rendered":"Allan McNish becomes Audi’s F1 racing director with immediate effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audi’s Formula 1 team has announced Allan\u00a0McNish as its new racing director, assuming many of the responsibilities held by team principal Jonathan Wheatley before his unexpected departure in March.<\/p>\n

Following that move, Audi’s F1 CEO Mattia Binotto confirmed that he would add the team principal title to his portfolio<\/a> and discharge most of the duties required of that position \u2013 but also that he would mostly be factory-based, requiring someone to take the leadership role during race weekends.<\/p>\n

“For the future, I think we are not looking for a new team principal,” Binotto said at the time.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

“I will keep the role, but I will need someone to support me at the race weekends because I will not be always at the race weekend myself. I need to focus most at the factory where there is the most to transform \u2013 I would say, not only to develop, to transform.<\/p>\n

“So certainly a support at the race weekend is required.”<\/p>\n

McNish, a world endurance champion and three-time winner at Le Mans behind the wheel of an Audi, has long been considered the favourite for that position. Since hanging up his helmet he has remained part of the Audi motorsport ecosystem, heading up the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler team in Formula E and most recently taking the lead in Audi’s driver development programme.<\/p>\n

\"McNish <\/p>\n

McNish was a test driver for McLaren in F1 and raced for Toyota in 2003<\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Essentially his role as racing director will be to manage F1 weekends from a sporting and performance perspective, taking responsibility for engineering and strategy decisions as well as driver management. He will report directly to Binotto.<\/p>\n

“Allan brings an exceptional combination of racing experience, technical understanding and leadership to this role,” said\u00a0Binotto.<\/p>\n

“He has been a central part of\u202fthe\u202fmotorsport structure\u202fof Audi\u202ffor many years and,\u202fin his roles within Audi\u202fRevolut\u202fF1 Team\u202fsince its start,\u202fhas played a key role in shaping our preparation for Formula 1, not least with his work around technical partnerships.<\/p>\n

“This appointment strengthens our trackside leadership at a crucial stage of our project. Allan’s ability to connect all performance-related areas \u2013 from sporting operations to driver development \u2013 will be fundamental as we continue to build\u202four team.”<\/p>\n

\"McNish <\/p>\n

McNish will continue to mentor Audi’s F1 Academy drivers<\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

“It is a privilege to\u202ftake\u202fon the role of racing director for Audi\u202fRevolut\u202fF1 Team,” said McNish.<\/p>\n

“This is a marque that means a lot to me and\u202fit is an\u202fhonour\u202fto\u202fbe able to represent\u202fAudi\u202fand our partners\u202fon the most prestigious\u202fstage in motorsports.\u202fThis is an exciting challenge at a pivotal moment\u202fin the history of Audi and Formula 1, and I am looking forward to contributing even more directly to our trackside performance.<\/p>\n

“The project we\u202fare building\u202fis\u202fambitious, and my focus will be on ensuring that all aspects of our race operations are\u202fdelivering at their most\u202fcompetitive\u202flevel\u202fand continuously improving.\u202fTogether with our driver development\u202fprogramme, to which\u202fI remain fully committed,\u202fmy focus will be on implementing the building blocks for our success, under the direction of\u202fMattia\u202fand the Board of Directors.”<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audi’s Formula 1 team has announced Allan\u00a0McNish as its new racing director, assuming many of the responsibilities held…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[304341,64,40856,63,817,813,816,297692,260774,85],"class_list":["post-627849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-allan-mcnish-becomes-audis-f1-racing-director-with-immediate-effect","tag-au","tag-audi","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-jeddah-street-circuit","tag-saudi-arabian-gp","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627849","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=627849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}