Nico Hulkenberg isn’t buying anyone’s Bahrain hype — including Audi’s.
After a winter in which Audi’s first proper works effort has looked reassuringly tidy from the outside, Hulkenberg has made it clear the team still has no idea where it truly sits until the season opens in Melbourne and everyone stops playing games. Even then, he suspects the picture won’t settle immediately.
“Hypothetical, it’s just speculation right now still,” Hulkenberg said in Bahrain. “I think we really don’t know until Melbourne and even a few races in, because I feel at the moment it also can be quite track dependent, how your package feels on different circuits.
“So we’ll have to wait and see until everybody really pulls their pants down in quali and we’ll find out.”
It’s an unusually blunt way of describing what every driver knows but not all will say so plainly: testing is theatre as much as it is engineering. Fuel loads, engine modes, run plans, tyre prep — the usual smoke and mirrors. And with 2026’s big reset, the temptation to hide your hand is even stronger, particularly for teams trying to understand how their new-era concepts translate from simulation to real-world circuits.
Audi arrives as one of two new power unit manufacturers on the 2026 grid, alongside Red Bull Powertrains, and its Bahrain programme did at least give the impression of a team that’s got its basics under control. The lap count was healthy, the running looked structured, and there were few obvious headline issues from the outside. Hulkenberg and rookie team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto logged 357 laps between them — a useful chunk of mileage that, in a year like this, can be worth more than a flattering one-lap time.
The raw times, as ever, offered a familiar pattern at the sharp end, with Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull prominent across the timesheets. Behind that, the midfield picture looked messy — Alpine’s Pierre Gasly ended up eighth, with Haas’ Oliver Bearman and Bortoleto close by, separated by three-tenths. Hulkenberg’s own pace sat in that same neighbourhood, enough to keep Audi’s name hovering around the “best of the rest” conversation without anyone being reckless enough to call it a breakthrough.
That, in many ways, is precisely the point Hulkenberg is making. Even if Audi rolls into Melbourne and appears to be fighting in the midfield, he’s not expecting one qualifying session to provide a definitive verdict on a package that’s still being understood.
Audi’s winter has been about scale as much as speed. This is the first season the German manufacturer has taken on the full works-team responsibility after assuming control of the operation formerly known as Sauber, and the power unit element is new ground. Hulkenberg framed it as a period of heavy lifting rather than instant glory.
“The team’s been working hard over the winter, obviously pushing all the areas, being new into the power unit side, doing that for the first time,” he said. “It’s been busy, and a challenge. I think we’re okay, but there’s still a lot of work and a lot of room for improvement on that side and a lot to come.”
That’s a veteran talking — not just about lap time, but about the reality of a works project bedding in. You can feel the caution in his language: “okay” is doing a lot of work there. So is the repeated emphasis on “early days”. It’s not downplaying for effect; it’s the mindset of a driver who’s seen too many winters where a promising test turns into a sobering first flyaway double-header.
Audi did start its preparations earlier than the public Bahrain sessions, running in Barcelona back in January before heading to Sakhir for two three-day outings. Hulkenberg said the team had found clear gains across that period, which is at least a meaningful internal marker — and arguably more relevant than where it appeared on a Friday afternoon timing screen.
“Certainly feel we made some very good progress from Barcelona to where we are today,” he said. “Definitely some positives there. But it’s still early days.
“There’s always more to do, more to work on, more to optimise. So, yeah, it’s very much work in progress. Learn as we go.”
The phrasing is telling. This isn’t a team declaring it’s arrived; it’s a team trying to make sure its foundations are solid before the sport starts throwing curveballs — changing track characteristics, shifting winds, different kerbs, differing tyre behaviour, and the weekend-to-weekend compromises that separate the well-prepared from the merely quick in testing.
Hulkenberg’s hope is straightforward: Audi in the midfield, and not as a bystander. “So early days, I hope we’re competitive somewhere in the midfield right now,” he said. “But then again, let’s see in a few weeks.”
That’s as close as you’ll get to a prediction from a driver who knows Melbourne will bring the first honest numbers of the season — and that even those numbers might lie, depending on how sensitive this new generation of cars proves to be from track to track.
For Audi, the key message isn’t that it looked decent in Bahrain. It’s that it behaved like a team with a plan, gathered the laps, and left testing talking about homework rather than headlines. In 2026, that might be the most credible indicator of all.
