Audis racing director, Allan McNish has revealed that the German manufacturer doesn't plan any further engine upgrades this season.

Despite scoring points in each of the last three races, the German team is still finding its feet, regularly making it through to Q2 but never really looking likely to break out of the midfield.

According to Nico Hulkenberg, the upgrade introduced in Spain has improved drivability, and the recent points finishes are a sign of improvement.

However, mainly due to the budget cap, there will be no further engine upgrades this year.

"Everybody has got this trade-off between when you're bringing upgrades, chassis and PU, and also where you spend your money," said the Scot. "You can't spend everything at one time," he continued, "because then you don't have anything to fight with later.

"So it's got to be a managed expectation, and not just over one season, but multiple seasons as well," he explained.

"So, certainly from our point of view, with the ADUO, we brought something in Barcelona straight away, which was some small adaption, and that worked well, and helped us on our way.

"Then, I would say, the bigger parts are for 2027. So we will not see anything big on the power unit until then."

Asked how big as step forward the new power unit will be, the Scot laughed and replied: "That's '27. Give us a break. We're only halfway through '26, I need my cup of tea first.

"You've got where you're going," he continued, "but it's also relative to the competition. So therefore we're always benchmarking against the competition, how quickly they move, and how quickly we can evolve.

"You could see that we've evolved in our performance this year so far, which has been definitely power-unit-related as well, making sure that we try to maximise some of the systems on that, but also definitely on the chassis with the upgrades that we spoke about. So I think we've definitely done that.

"We will do it again in the second half of the year, but for the power unit that's the '27 topic. It's more hardware than anything, and that's not a quick thing to change."

Asked about the claimed improved drivability, he said: "It is about what you request on the pedal, how the PU responds, how the torque delivery is. Does it surge, is it consistent, is it smooth? It is very fine stuff. We can talk about it, but you need to have experience to feel it. It happens in a blink of an eye, less than a tenth on a corner exit. But with a car on the limit, over the limit, all these things matter a lot.

"If you then have driveability issues on top of that, it is like trying to hit a curveball. The same on the gearbox side with shifting, shift quality. As you are all aware and heard, there can be big differences in terms of shift quality, upshifts and downshifts. And they have an impact on car balance and car behaviour too. So it all goes together."