Audi’s first proper taste of 2026 machinery has looked exactly like what it is: the early-life stress test of a brand-new F1 project, with all the unglamorous gremlins that come with it. And in the middle of a stop-start Barcelona shakedown, technical director James Key has been candid about the yardstick the team’s using right now.
If Audi can stitch together a clean final day on track, Key says the squad will leave Barcelona “pretty pleased” — not because the stopwatch has suddenly flattered the R26, but because the team is chasing something more basic and, at this stage, far more valuable: mileage and data.
That tone matters. There’s been a tendency in the paddock to treat these opening 2026 runs like a primitive form guide, even though everyone knows better. For Audi, with its first works power unit finally seeing a circuit in anger, the shakedown is less about lap time and more about proving the car is a functioning system. Cooling, hydraulics, software integration, gearbox behaviour, energy recovery mapping — the stuff that either lets you run a programme or strands you at the pit exit.
The interruptions have been real. On the opening morning, Gabriel Bortoleto brought out one of three red flags when the R26 stopped on track. Audi described it only as a “technical issue”, but the impact was clear: limited running, with unofficial lap counts putting it at 27 laps for the day. In a week where teams are effectively trying to cram months of correlation work into a handful of permitted days, that’s a painful hole to climb out of.
When Audi returned for its next running day, there was more early drama — Nico Hülkenberg reportedly triggered another stoppage — before the team managed to stabilise the afternoon and bank 68 laps with the German at the wheel. The rhythm of the day told its own story: the car can circulate, but it’s still in the phase where a small fault can knock out hours.
Key didn’t try to spin it as anything other than normal 2026 reality.
“This test is a prove out test of a very new car for everyone, of course, but particularly for us with a very new power unit as well, the first Audi power unit,” he said, underlining just how much of this week is about basic validation rather than any kind of performance narrative. “So, this is all about reliability and getting the fundamentals figured out.”
There’s a line in there that will resonate inside every factory: “We don’t want to be discovering this in Melbourne.” That’s the nightmare scenario for a new car concept and a new power unit — arriving at the first race still diagnosing problems you could’ve found with a few more uninterrupted hours of running.
The causes so far have sounded almost reassuring in their mundanity. Key described Wednesday’s delay as a hydraulic leak — “a real basic thing” — before Audi recovered to put meaningful laps on the board later in the day. That’s not to dismiss it; hydraulics can take you from “fine” to “dead” in an instant. But it’s not the sort of issue that suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the regulations or an unsolvable design flaw. It’s the sort of thing you want to find now, on a cool Barcelona morning, not on the grid with the world watching.
What’s different for Audi compared to most of the established operations is the knock-on effect of every lost lap for the power unit group back in Neuburg. Key made a point of highlighting that the engine department has been working without track-referenced data until now. It’s easy to forget how much of modern F1 is about calibration and strategy, not simply peak numbers on a dyno.
“My colleagues in Neuburg on the power unit side have got no track referenced data at all,” Key said. “This is the first time they’re actually going to get track data for their power unit and for the gearbox as well.”
That’s why the team’s internal priorities right now are so different to what fans naturally gravitate towards. Even if the R26 were capable of producing a headline time, Audi would be mad to chase it this early. The biggest performance gains in this phase often come from just being able to run the plan: completing longer sequences, repeating conditions, and gradually moving from “does it work?” to “does it do what the simulation says it should?”
Key framed it in exactly those terms, pointing to the work required to “beginning to tune all these complex energy recovery strategies and all the various other things that goes with the ’26 car.” The 2026 package is new enough that teams aren’t merely bolting on an updated aerodynamic kit; they’re re-learning the balance of the entire car-power unit ecosystem. That’s the hidden value of a clean day: you can finally stop firefighting and start engineering.
As for whether Audi will tick off everything on the wishlist with one day left of its Barcelona allocation, Key was realistic. The “really important stuff” is achievable, he said — and the emphasis again was on simply getting laps.
“The list is never ending in terms of what you really want to do,” he admitted, “but provided we can have a good third day, I think we’ll come away pretty pleased.”
There was also a useful reality check in his dismissal of any wider paddock comparison. With different teams running different fuel loads, programmes, sensors and objectives — and with red flags cropping up across the board as these “very, very immature” cars find their feet — the timing screens are close to meaningless.
“Nothing unexpected, actually,” Key said when asked about surprises. “I think had we run faultlessly from the outset, that would have been a very pleasant surprise.”
That might be the most honest line anyone will say all week. The first shakedown of a new regulations era rarely rewards the teams who look fastest; it rewards the teams who learn the most. For Audi, the immediate win isn’t a purple sector. It’s a final day where the car stays alive, the power unit logs clean references, and the engineers go home with something they can build on — rather than simply repair.
