Today's team representatives press conference with Allan McNish, Graeme Lowdon and Alan Permane.
Welcome to the FIA press conference, Allan, your first one in F1 since 2002. How are you enjoying, first of all, life as Racing Director of Audi?
Allan McNish: I think all of us are racing people and we live and breathe it, and being at the track is where we actually come to life. From the point of view of where we are this year, obviously it's a new season, a new chapter in Audi's motor sport career, and to have seen it growing from really just the first conversations before it was even launched here in 2022, there's been a tremendous amount of work and effort behind the scenes. But now, to be live at a circuit is really nice, especially on that fourth-year anniversary from when we launched the programme.
Allan, can you just clarify your areas of responsibility and how they differ from CEO and Team Principal Mattia Binotto's?
AM: Yeah, Mattia is in charge of the whole programme, from the power unit side, chassis side, everything back at base, whereas my area is here at the circuit. So, I'm in charge of the racing responsibility, if you want to put it that way, from engineering, from strategy, ultimately in these areas, but also in the activation, from marketing and communications, and pretty much everything in between. So, it's quite a wide role, but also very much in line with the people already involved in the programme and back at base in Hinwil and Neuburg, and also in Bicester.
Let's talk about performance now. A decent result for Gabi last time out at Silverstone with that P8. Just how satisfied are you with the progress being made trackside?
AM: Certainly in all areas. I think we came out of the blocks and the car has been pretty quick overall. We've had a few reliability issues and the beginning of the season was quite tough, but really from Canada onwards we started to get a bit of control over that, so to be able to show the performance. In the last three races, really from Monaco onwards, we've been knocking on the door of points. It was pretty frustrating at times going home without them on a few occasions, especially if I think of Barcelona, where Nico was stunning and then a pretty freak incident took him out of the race. So, from that perspective, it is nice to get some points on the board and just to solidify, and also to prove to ourselves to a great extent, that we can actually deliver it. But to do that, we needed to improve in our process as well. We needed to improve in our race operations, which we've been doing slowly, I would say, step by step and race by race, to the point we are now. I think we're quite comfortable with where we are.
We're at the halfway point in the season, so what are your goals for the second half?
AM: Well, I think, in the end, we know the competition, especially with Racing Bulls. We know Cadillac is improving quite a lot, as well as Alpine. So, for us, we are fighting in that midfield area and it's to try to consistently be there, chipping at it. It depends, I think, a little bit circuit to circuit whether we're ahead of one or behind, but ultimately, we need to be making sure that we're delivering whatever the package can deliver each weekend. That's the goal. Where it is relative, in terms of fighting in the top 10 or just outside it, that depends on the competition as well as us.
A quick word on the drivers. You've said Nico was mighty in Barcelona, but just give us a summary of the job the two guys have done for you so far this year.
AM: I think we're very fortunate, to be honest with you, with Nico and Gabi, because they complement each other very well. Different eras of their careers, I would say. With Nico especially, we've got someone who has a lot of experience, gets out there and still delivers it in a race situation, and we've seen that now on multiple occasions. Super good. On the other side of it, Gabi's getting stronger every single weekend, and I think we've got a nice little balance between the two. As I stand here today, I think actually, for us and where we are, it is the perfect combination.
Allan, thank you for that. I'm sure there'll be more questions for you in a minute. Graeme, let's come to you. Welcome. You got both cars to the finish at Silverstone after the reliability issues you'd suffered in the previous races. How significant was that for you and the team?
Graeme Lowdon: It was great. Everyone's working extremely hard. Every team in this pit lane works incredibly hard, so it's not something that's unique to us. But the team worked really hard and it was frustrating to have a string of events where we were chasing particular problems around a bit, and we didn't get a two-car finish in two or three races, and then obviously a double DNF in Austria, which you don't want. So, Silverstone was nice to be back to what we'd experienced earlier in the season, finishing both cars in the Sprint race and both cars in the Grand Prix as well.
We're almost at the halfway point in the season. Can we get your verdict on progress so far, almost a half-term report for F1's newest team?
GL: It's difficult. There are no other new teams, so how do you actually measure something? The reality is Formula 1 is, I think, the most difficult team sport in the world. We have huge respect for the competition. I think that's really important. We, as a team, have entered the sport with a bold ambition for the future, and if you're going to do that, you enter the sport with humility and respect for the competition. This isn't a sport you can just walk into and blow everyone away. It's one where you have to build foundations and build a high-performance environment for your team to be in, and that's exactly what we're focused on doing. Everyone's worked so hard. I'll take this opportunity to say a massive thanks to everybody in the team, everyone in the US, in Indianapolis and in Charlotte, and also in Silverstone, and also at the wind tunnel in Cologne, in Germany. It really is a huge effort. Again, it's difficult to measure the team's progress in terms of championship position or performance because, as I say, we're coming in completely from a standing start. But what we do look at measuring is, each weekend, what's in our control, how well have we executed, what can we improve? Every day is a school day, and we're just looking to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can. We have to do it in front of a few hundred million people as well, so we want to do it as professionally as we can.
A quick word on Valtteri, for whom it's been trickier to get comfortable with this car than Checo. What have his struggles come down to, and how have his struggles helped you to develop the car?
GL: Honestly, I would not classify them as struggles. We're asking the drivers to do different things all the time. They're an integral part, both Valtteri and Checo, very much an integral part of the team. One of the reasons why we wanted them in the team is their experience in multiple team environments. They know how important it is to build the engineering team up, to build the mechanics, designers, everybody. So, I think it's fair to say that they're doing more than just driving the car, and it's rare that we're asking them to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. So, I wouldn't want to suggest that Valtteri's struggling in any way. I think he's playing his part at the very pinnacle of motorsport, and he's helping to drive the team forward.
Graeme, thank you for that. Alan, thank you for waiting. We'll come to you now. You're the only team to have scored double points in the last four races. How have you managed to find such consistency when others seem to have struggled?
Alan Permane: I don't know about the others, but we started this car a little bit late last year. We were in our own championship fight last year for that sixth place, and that was very important to us, so we started a little bit late on the 2026 car. We knew the first races, or we felt the first races, were going to be a bit of a struggle. Certainly, testing was definitely a struggle. We brought a very large upgrade for Melbourne, and we've continued to upgrade the car through the season. I think what really switched the car on was the floor we brought to Montreal, and that really did light the car up. The second part of what's really helped our season is finding the race pace. We had a very nice car in Canada in qualifying, but it wasn't so good in the race. Monaco was very similar, Barcelona very similar. I think Allan said that Nico was flying in Barcelona and we luckily managed to take him out of the race, but we didn't have good enough race pace. What we've done since Austria, and Austria and Silverstone have shown, is that we've fixed that, certainly for those two tracks. Here, the early indications look like we're in good shape as well. So it's a combination of what has been delivered from the wind tunnel, design and production, and a little bit of the way the guys are running the car at the track.
There's a healthy rivalry developing between your two drivers. First up, how much are you relishing that?
AP: Yeah, it's good to have two quick guys, that's for sure. I'm sure there'll be some management needed. They're incredibly close. If we look this morning, their ideal laps are separated by milliseconds, so it's going to be nip and tuck, I'm sure, all year.
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