When the chief designer of the reigning constructors’ champion singles out a back-of-the-grid crew’s bodywork as some of the fascinating issues on the 2026 grid, it’s value looking. Rob Marshall did precisely that this week, selecting out the crew’s sidepods because the standout resolution among the many constructed to F1’s new laws.
The 2026 rule package deal was purported to push groups towards broadly comparable designs. Smaller, lighter vehicles, lively aerodynamics, a 50/50 break up between combustion and energy, and a totally sustainable components have been all baked into the regs to reset the sector after the bottom impact period.
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The expectation within the paddock was a grid filled with vehicles that appeared totally different within the particulars however shared the identical basic structure. Audi has gone about issues slightly in a different way.
Why Marshall Thinks the Sayer Period Audi Appears Completely different
Marshall, who left Purple Bull to affix in 2024 and has been a big determine within the crew’s latest dominance, gave his evaluation of what’s caught his eye up and down the pitlane. On Audi particularly, his believes that the crew has gone its personal method on part of the most rivals seem to have converged on.
“I feel those which are notably fascinating… throughout the grid, beginning close to the top — nicely, within the center — you discover the Audi sidepods, [which] are fairly fascinating. Clearly, they opted for a unique resolution, that no one has something much like. It would remind you slightly of a Williams from a couple of years in the past, however I feel everybody thought they might do one thing, in all probability widespread, however clearly they didn’t,” he mentioned, .
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“ has a really fascinating geometry,” he added. “The rear appears to be like fairly bold, very fascinating. You’ll be able to perceive the curiosity behind it. Their entrance suspension can be very fascinating — it could have been impressed by one thing we did final yr, fairly comparable in lots of points,” he concluded.
Marshall is presumably pointing on the closely undercut, narrow-shouldered sidepod that Williams ran within the FW44 and FW45 period, which packaged the radiators and electronics in a different way to the inboard-cooling options that turned trendy all over the place else. It was a much less travelled then, and it apparently is once more now.
What the R26 Really Is
The Audi undertaking has been a very long time coming. The Sauber operation in Hinwil has been constructing towards the Audi takeover for the reason that producer introduced its entry in , with Audi formally taking up at first of 2026 and bringing its personal energy unit inbuilt Neuburg. The automotive is designed round that , the bodywork is the crew’s first crack on the new regs, and the motive force lineup pairs Gabriel Bortoleto with Nico Hulkenberg – two very proficient .
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Mattia Binotto runs the operation as head of the Audi F1 undertaking after Jonathan Wheatley left the crew solely weeks in the past. The technical group has been rebuilding the Hinwil base for 2 years, hiring aggressively and investing in infrastructure that the Sauber-era crew merely didn’t have. The R26’s distinctive sidepod is presumably one of many first seen outputs of all that.
Williams’s narrow-sidepod period ended with the crew scrapping the idea and copying the grid. Audi might find yourself doing the identical, or it could have discovered one thing the remainder of the sector missed. Both method, an Audi automotive trying nothing like anybody else’s is an indication that the producer is taking the undertaking significantly sufficient to gamble.
