Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has lauded Audi’s System 1 energy unit headquarters, declaring the German producer’s engine division as “second to none”.
Talking on the Excessive Efficiency Racing podcast alongside host Jake Humphrey and former Alpine group principal Otmar Szafnauer, Smedley evaluated the grid’s progress within the first half of the season.
Whereas Audi has confronted a steep studying curve since taking up the Sauber operation and changing into a works outfit, Smedley pointed to the size and high quality of its powertrain funding.
“Sauber, I imply, they have been fairly determined these final two or three years. They have been simply terrible, there is no different phrase for it,” the previous engineer stated.
When Szafnauer argued that Audi nonetheless owned the group at that stage, so it had good monetary backing and first rate infrastructure, Smedley added: “They’ve all the time had an excellent wind tunnel, or have for a very long time. However now, if you happen to have a look at their facility in Germany, the engine facility, the ability unit facility, that’s second to none, they usually’re nonetheless constructing and nonetheless happening it.
Nico Hülkenberg, Audi
Photograph by: Eric Le Galliot
“So, it is a large challenge for them. Hinwil as a System 1 facility leaves perhaps a bit bit to be desired. However they’re increasing that, and there are plans of the place they wish to go along with it. So, it is a actually necessary challenge for them.”
Audi retained the 2025 Sauber driver line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto. After 12 rounds of the 2026 season, the group sits eighth within the constructors’ championship with 16 factors. Bortoleto is 14th within the drivers’ standings with 10 factors and Hulkenberg is fifteenth with six factors.
The thirteenth spherical of the season, the Italian Grand Prix, will happen at Monza from 4-6 September.
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