As the 2025 Formula 1 season is over, Sauber has officially competed in their last F1 race. They are now in the midst of their rebrand as Audi, which will retain Jonathan Wheatley as team principal, with Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto as their F1 drivers.
During a print media session after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Wheatley was asked where he thinks Audi stands relative to the targets set and its F1 competitors.
“You’re not going to know until Melbourne. Perhaps even not Melbourne. Probably need to be four races into the season before we can actually build a picture of our performance.”
For the past year, Sauber has been working towards its 2026 rebrand. Speaking of the Audi F1 project, the former Red Bull man discussed the huge pressure they are putting on themselves.
“This is an incredibly ambitious project. We have so much to do before January 1st. I can’t begin to tell you. Running the Formula One team this year has been one thing. Getting ourselves ready to become the Audi Formula One team next year.
Turning Sauber into Audi
“You can imagine the expectation, the pressure on us internally on every single department, every sign in the factory, every single thing has to be different.”
Audi is one of the few teams with its main headquarters outside of the UK. They are based in Hinwil, Switzerland, with a smaller technology centre in Bicester, England.
The team principal went on to explain how different the season was shaping up to be.
“Everything you see, feel, touch, and hear in the circuit is different. We’re bringing together a brand new power unit with a chassis for the first time, and we’re firing it up before Christmas.
Formerly at Red Bull Racing, the Briton moved to Sauber for the 2025 season. Even with his time at other teams, he cannot remember undertaking such a huge project. As stated multiple times between Binotto and Wheatley, Audi do not expect to challenge for F1 titles until the very late 2020s or early 2030s.
“I can’t remember ever doing that. There’s a huge amount to do between now and then and that’s why we talk about this project to be challenging at the end of the decade.
“It’s because it takes time, and I’m hoping certainly I have a little bit more time in my life when I’ve just got to concentrate on being Audi and not being on two teams at the same time.”
Wheatley on what to expect in 2026
Later in the session, he explained why he thought it would take a few races to understand how their competitors are going and what is the right way to tackle this set of regulations.
“Yeah, also that to understand the characteristics of each car, how you get performance out of it over the course of a qualifying lap and over the course of a race distance.
“I have to look back at 2014 and think ‘well, okay, what was the championship like then? I don’t think, although I would be very happy if it was, I don’t think we’ll have the top 22 cars separated by a second in Q1.”
In the final season under the current regulations, qualifying sessions were extremely close. Wheatley does not see that happening immediately in the new era and calls it “hugely ambitious for the sport to assume you would be there in the first year of these regulations.”
However, he did say he was excited about the prospect of the new season and these new cars. Wheatley added his drivers are saying it’s more predictable to drive.
“I can’t help but feel excited about it. The feedback that I’ve had from the drivers is it’s a car you can drive, these cars at the moment you turn in and you hope, and you come out the other side, and you work out whether it works out okay.”
Audi’s F1 team principal Jonathan Wheatley concluded: “I’m just very excited about our own project and what we’re hoping to achieve.”
