Audi’s first proper step into Formula 1 has arrived with the sort of polish you’d expect from the Four Rings: a Berlin launch, a sharp new identity, and two drivers signed to take the heat — and the patience — that comes with a long-term works project.
Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto will lead Audi Revolut F1 Team into the sport’s 2026 reset, carrying continuity through what is effectively a transformation of the Hinwil operation from Sauber into a full Audi works outfit. The team isn’t pretending it’ll stroll in and start trading punches with the established frontrunners straight away, either. Internally and publicly, Audi has pitched 2026 as a “challenger” year — points-fighting territory first, then a measured climb with the stated aim of becoming a genuine championship contender by the 2030 season.
That framing matters, because it defines the brief for both drivers. Hulkenberg brings the hardened realism of someone who’s seen enough grand projects to know the difference between a glossy promise and a functioning organisation. Bortoleto brings the wide-eyed energy Audi will want in its narrative — but he spoke with the kind of seriousness that suggests he understands the job isn’t simply to be fast, it’s to grow with the programme while it finds its feet in the new era.
“At the very start of its journey” is how Hulkenberg describes it, and there’s a telling line in his comments that will resonate around the paddock: “You learn to distinguish between ambition and capability.” He isn’t new to being sold a story. But he says what he feels at Audi right now is “profound seriousness” and “incredible energy”, with the weight of a works team behind it — resources, expertise, the whole corporate machine. Hulkenberg doesn’t do giddy very often, which makes his tone here notable: this is a driver who seems to believe the pieces are being put in the right places.
For Bortoleto, the language is more emotional, but not naive. He called it “the opportunity of a lifetime” and leaned hard into the heritage angle — Le Mans dominance, rallying legend — the sort of legacy Audi wants to bring into F1 without sounding like it’s dining out on old trophies. “I feel the weight of the responsibility,” he said, before pivoting to what Audi will want from him: learn quickly, push hard, and buy into the long haul.
The visual side of that long haul broke cover in Berlin with the R26 livery, an evolution of the R26 Concept design Audi showed late in 2025. It’s not just paint, of course — liveries are marketing, mood music, signalling — but the unveiling was still another milestone for a project that recently ticked off its first filming-day run in Barcelona. These are the early bricks being laid before the real work begins: correlation, reliability, systems, and the unglamorous grind that decides whether a “works team” label translates into lap time.
Audi’s public messaging has been refreshingly straight. No talk of miracles, no forced bravado about “winning from day one”. Just a clear runway: fight for points, keep building, and aim higher once the foundations are settled. That’s a sensible posture in 2026, when the regulation changes will scramble the competitive order and expose any weakness in organisation as ruthlessly as any flaw in the car.
The driver line-up fits that posture neatly. Hulkenberg offers a dependable reference point and an experienced voice in debriefs — exactly the sort of profile teams lean on when everything is new and you need feedback you can trust. Bortoleto, meanwhile, is the investment in upside, the driver who can be moulded alongside the team as Audi defines what it wants to be in F1 rather than what it used to be elsewhere.
The first proper read on whether all this early confidence is justified will come quickly. Audi is set to take part in the first pre-season test with the rest of the field at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where teams can run on three of the five days from 26 to 30 January. That’s when the rhetoric meets reality: long runs, system checks, and the first clues — however disguised — about whether Audi’s 2026 “challenger” talk is a cautious understatement or simply an honest baseline.
Hulkenberg, for his part, already has Melbourne in mind. “We have the chance to build something very special together,” he said, adding that he can’t wait to get the car on track in Australia. It’s a familiar line, but in this case it lands differently — because Audi’s not just launching a car. It’s launching a presence. And in a grid where credibility is earned the hard way, that’s the real start of the story.
