Reliability Remains Audi’s Biggest F1 Challenge

Hulkenberg was particularly frustrated after a squandered weekend.

“Different reasons, different issues… a proper character-building weekend, we’ve had some promising signs and the pace in the car is not bad, but we need to be able to finish sessions, races, quali, get the cars out there,” Hulkenberg said. “We need to regroup, reset, take it on the chin, we’ll keep digging and try and be better in Montreal. It’s very frustrating for us, we need to sort ourselves out.”

Bortoleto remained grounded and emphasized that “things like this are going to happen,” pointing to Audi’s status as a new power unit manufacturer, and one without customer teams.

“We only have two cars, there are teams running eight cars, so imagine the amount of learning you can get by having that number of cars,” he said. “We only have me and Nico, we just need to be patient, and when it’s fixed, I’m sure it can be good.”

Miami was the first grand prix for Allan McNish in his role as Racing Director, though he has been working with the team behind-the-scenes for several years, and has vast history with Audi both as a competitor in sportscars and in management in Formula E.

McNish agreed with the drivers that “the underlying chassis performance is pretty good,” though accepted that getting a handle on reliability setbacks is “clear focus number one,” so that attention can turn elsewhere.

Allan McNish.Mark Sutton - Formula 1 - Getty Images

“Obviously we don’t want them, that’s for sure,” McNish said of the issues. “But a lot of power unit [manufacturers] are having some issues, it’s not just us. There’s a lot of areas everyone’s trying to manage and control, learning, and certainly for us we’re learning a lot more than others.

“They’re already in the system with understanding 75 percent of it, and definitely we need to tidy up, there’s no question about it. We do have to improve, that’s a clear focus on where we are, but it’s also clear learning for a new operation

“It’s race four for a new team, we know Sauber was there before, however it’s also integration of Audi power unit into that system as well,” McNish said before pausing. “Judge us at the end of the year!”