{"id":839983,"date":"2026-08-02T14:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T14:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/839983\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T14:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T14:44:11","slug":"audi-f1-delays-key-engine-upgrade-as-plan-of-action-emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/839983\/","title":{"rendered":"Audi F1 delays key engine upgrade as plan of action emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Audi<\/a> F1 team may be allowed to upgrade its power unit again in the F1 2026 season, but the German manufacturer won\u2019t be doing so.<\/p>\n

Under the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities [ADUO] system, Audi was awarded two upgrade \u2018tokens\u2019 at the first checkpoint after the Monaco Grand Prix, only one of which has been used.<\/p>\n

Allan McNish explains why Audi will delay its next power unit upgrade<\/p>\n

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Rounding off the first half of the F1 2026 season with three consecutive points finishes, the Audi team has started to unlock potential from its R26 after the early stages of the season suggested pace and potential within the package.<\/p>\n

Audi has been transparent that its biggest deficit has been on the power unit side of the equation, with the first offering from Neuberg proving largely solid and reliable, but lagging behind the benchmark offerings from Mercedes and Red Bull Powertrains.<\/p>\n

While the drivers have highlighted the competitiveness of the chassis, Mattia Binotto has suggested the power unit accounts for about a second of Audi\u2019s deficit to the front.<\/p>\n

This evaluation was borne out in the FIA\u2019s assessment of the power units under the ADUO benchmarking system, with Audi and Honda being the only power unit manufacturers [PUMs] to be granted the full two upgrade opportunities.<\/p>\n

Evaluated on the internal combustion engine [ICE] alone, the ADUO system grants lagging PUMs additional upgrades and development time based on how far off the benchmark ICE a given unit is.<\/p>\n

With Audi being given two, this indicates the ICE is at least four per cent down on performance compared to the benchmark RBPT engine.<\/p>\n

Audi was clearly aware of this deficit as, following the first measurement window after the Monaco Grand Prix, the manufacturer cashed in one of its two opportunities via a PU upgrade at the Barcelona Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

This update largely focused on driveability, rather than outright performance, with the drivers having struggled with this aspect of the engine in the first quarter of the season, mostly borne out by difficulties in getting the car off the line.<\/p>\n

But the second permitted ADUO upgrade won\u2019t be cashed in before the end of 2026, Allan McNish has revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be next year,\u201d McNish said, following the Hungarian Grand Prix, when asked when the next PU update might come.<\/p>\n

With Audi taking a measured approach to establishing a stable baseline of performance and organically growing in resources and knowledge as a team, McNish said a major consideration to introducing more upgrades comes down to managing budgets within the financial regulations \u2013 PUMs are also restricted by a budget cap, as well as the teams themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has got this trade-off between when you\u2019re bringing upgrades, chassis and PU, and also where you spend your money,\u201d McNish said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you can\u2019t spend everything at one time, because then you don\u2019t have anything to fight with later.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s got to be a managed expectation \u2013 and not just over one season, but multiple seasons as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, certainly from our point of view with the ADUO, we brought something in Barcelona straight away, which was some small adaptation, and that worked well, that helped us on our way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, I would say, the bigger parts are for 2027. So we will not see anything big on the power unit until then.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Audi in F1<\/p>\n

Audi half-season review: Should midfield rivals start to fear the German giant?<\/a><\/p>\n

Audi F1 driver delivers verdict on rare \u00a3500k supercar after track test<\/a><\/p>\n

With the power unit driveability improving by way of the Barcelona update, a performance-related upgrade will thus have to wait until 2027, but the Scot laughed when asked about how big a step the next change to the power unit might introduce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s 2027, give us a break! We\u2019re only halfway through \u201926; I need my cup of tea first!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got where you\u2019re going, but it\u2019s also relative to the competition. So, therefore, we\u2019re always benchmarking against the competition, and how quickly they move, and how quickly we can evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see that we\u2019ve evolved in our performance this year so far, which has been definitely power-unit-related as well, making sure that we try to maximise some of the systems on that, but also definitely on the chassis with the upgrades that we spoke about there. And so, I think, we\u2019ve definitely done that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do again in the second half of the year, but, for the power unit, that\u2019s a \u201827 topic. It\u2019s more hardware than anything, and that\u2019s not a quick thing to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

With F1 going into a mandatory two-week summer break, McNish reflected on how the team recently \u2018broke its duck\u2019 after seven consecutive races of promise, but no points, with Silverstone marking the first of a trio of races in which Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg have scored points.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the [aero] upgrade in Austria, and that helped us a lot, especially in the lower-speed corners, where we were a little bit weaker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve also adapted and been able to, I would say, help the drivability. Again, a lower speed corner type of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, in these situations, it\u2019s that. And then to try to extract, you find direction with the car, what it likes, what the driver likes, and that\u2019s where we\u2019ve just expanded a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

With McNish representing a replacement for the departed team principal Jonathan Wheatley earlier this year, the former F1 driver and highly successful sportscar driver\u2019s first management role in Formula 1 has seen him join Mattia Binotto in the operation of the Audi team.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only been a few short months, both for McNish and the Audi project, but the Scot says he sees plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the direction the team is travelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I got directly involved, I can see growth in the people. You know, the confidence in the people. I think we\u2019re functioning as a team, and [Budapest] was quite a difficult race because of different things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the way that we executed it, I thought, was good. In terms of car performance, I think we\u2019re better in qualifying than I expected. I didn\u2019t think we would be quite so quick and consistently quick, and we are able to deal with that. We need to make a step forward again there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of things that we are not so happy about, things we need to improve, we need to work on the starts. That\u2019s something that again hurt us, dropping behind [Liam] Lawson because, at the end, there we had the opportunity to be ahead of one of the Racing Bulls, but we were beaten by both of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut overall, I come away from it thinking, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019ve got a lot we can improve, a lot, and a lot we have to improve\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve now just jumped Williams in the Constructors\u2019 Championship. We\u2019ve consistently had Q3s. We\u2019ve consistently had top tens in the races and points, and I can see with the development that we\u2019re making as a team, operationally and also technically, that, actually, we\u2019ll just get stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose that\u2019s the biggest thing that I feel is comfort, more than confidence: comfort that we are just getting stronger on an upward trend at the moment. But, being totally honest, where we are is in the midfield, and the gap to the top four teams is big.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut considering we\u2019ve done 11 races in our Formula 1 career, then I think it\u2019s actually quite a good position to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Read next: \u2018Clusterf**k\u2019 \u2013 Ferrari insider finally lifts lid on famous Kimi Raikkonen pit stop blunder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Audi F1 team may be allowed to upgrade its power unit again in the F1 2026 season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[306607,64,40856,63,817,813,816,818,44,17165,85],"class_list":["post-839983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-allan-mcnish","tag-au","tag-audi","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-popular","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839983","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=839983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}