Allan McNish warns against premature Audi F1 judgements

Audi racing director Allan McNish has urged fans to “judge us at the end of the year” after a mixed start to the 2026 Formula 1 season.

Audi has shown strong pace at times across the opening four weekends of the campaign, but it has also been plagued with poor starts and reliability woes, severely limiting its points return.

Miami saw 10 of the 11 teams bring upgrades to the track, with Aston Martin the exception, but McNish revealed that Audi will bring a more substantial package to Montreal.

“Yeah, we will be,” he said when asked of the upgrade plan. “Canada is quite specific, and so is Monaco. In reality, those are pretty specific circuits - the same as Monza is a little bit more related towards Canada. But we do have things.

“We had four upgrades in Miami - some front brake ducts - but small relative to what the majority of the competition had.

“I think we’ve got to remember as well, this is race four for a new team. Sauber was there before, but it’s also the integration of the Audi power unit into that system as well.

“Therefore, judge us at the end of the year.”

With smaller upgrades than most in Miami, Audi showed strong single-lap pace and flirted with the points in the grand prix. Despite failing to add to the two points scored by Gabriel Bortoleto in the Australia season opener, McNish took solace from the underlying performance.

“The raw pace of the car [was strong], and also, when you talk about Nico [Hulkenberg], I’ve got to say, from what he did with the problem to qualify on the edge of Q3 was pretty impressive and it showed his experience.

“Certainly, we know that, like it always is, when you’ve got a new regulation for a new season and there are bigger gaps, those naturally close down. So the gaps that we can see - the likes of Williams improved their race performance in Miami, so it is going to get harder and harder. It’s not as if we can sit on our pace, we have to improve in other areas as well.

“But ultimately, I think the underlying car performance, chassis performance, is really good.”