{"id":656422,"date":"2026-05-07T22:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656422\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:33:12","slug":"i-live-to-race-allan-mcnish-reflects-on-how-his-first-weekend-as-audi-racing-director-went","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656422\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I live to race’ \u2013 Allan McNish reflects on how his first weekend as Audi Racing Director went"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allan McNish has shared his reflections following his first weekend in his new role as Racing Director at Audi, with the Scot admitting that his passion for the sport means that he won\u2019t \u201cgo home happy unless we’ve won\u201d.<\/p>\n

Following the exit of former Team Principal Jonathan Wheatley in March, it was confirmed in late April that McNish would becoming the squad’s Racing Director<\/a>, heading up trackside operations from the Miami Grand Prix onwards.<\/p>\n

His arrival was welcomed by drivers Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> and Nico Hulkenberg<\/a>, with Bortoleto stating that he believed McNish \u2013 who has long been a part of the Audi<\/a> brand \u2013 would \u201cdo an incredible job\u201d<\/a>, while Hulkenberg acknowledged the vast amount of motorsport experience that the former F1 driver brings.<\/p>\n

When asked how his first weekend in the new role had gone following the Miami<\/a> event \u2013 which saw Bortoleto end Sunday\u2019s race in P12 while Hulkenberg was forced to retire the car \u2013 McNish joked when speaking to media: \u201cWell, I’m actually more nervous now than any time before!<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I’ve been at the circuit a few times \u2013 it’s not the first time, so I understand the ways of the world, so to speak. Clearly, we’ve got a lot of experience in different areas of the team, which is good.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other side of it, I knew quite a lot of the things that we were needing to work on in operational.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on the other side, it was the biggest event that the team has had from marketing and communications with events downtown, so there was a whole load of other stuff apart from what was going on in here as well, for some pop-ups and other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was actually across many areas more than necessarily just the Racing Director operational aspect of it, which is what you have to do in the role. But it was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNish reiterated that \u2013 having spent much of his life in the world of motorsport \u2013 he remains as passionate about it as ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I live to race,\u201d he explained. \u201cI’ve lived to race all my life, since I was 11 years old. It’s what I love, it’s what gets me up in the morning, it’s what’s the passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I say I live to race, I don’t go home happy unless we’ve won, and I know that that’s not always the case because, in racing in your career, you lose more than you win. That’s just natural statistics, apart from maybe one or two.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that this environment is my life, it’s my career, it’s my hobby, it’s my passion. It’s always good to be here. The alternative’s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting further on what he enjoyed the most in Miami from his perspective as a racer, McNish added: \u201cI loved Gabi’s move round the outside of [Isack] Hadjar<\/a> at Turn 4 [in the Sprint]. I have to be honest, when he went round the outside of Hadjar there, I was like, yes, get in!<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that is it, because it’s just the drive. Also, that for me was a fantastic repay to the mechanics that had just worked like hell to get his car out. That’s what they love \u2013 they will give everything if they see their driver giving everything back, and that was a cool one yesterday, so I think, yes, I did like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allan McNish has shared his reflections following his first weekend in his new role as Racing Director at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-656422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656422","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=656422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}