Audi F1 team boss Jonathan Wheatley says the Chinese Grand Prix "exposed our weaknesses" as the team tries to get a grip on power unit driveability and reliability.
Audi's long-awaited debut as an F1 works outfit has been a tale of two halves. The German manufacturer surprised friend and foe with the performance of its first-ever F1 power unit, which has allowed it to slot into F1's midfield from the start in Melbourne.
But it has also suffered from serious reliability issues which left Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto unable to make the start in Australia and China respectively, and the Shanghai International Circuit further exposed driveability issues which saw Audi lose out in the midfield battle.
Bortoleto had to be pushed back to the garage from the grid with an issue that is believed to be similar to the one that struck Hulkenberg in Australia, leaving the German as Audi's only representative in the race.
It was effectively Hulkenberg's first full-distance race of the season given his Melbourne DNS, and it uncovered several issues Audi needs to get on top of, including a slow start off the line and a general lack of driveability. The absence of McLaren cars and other attrition could still have yielded points for Audi, but a slow pitstop put paid to those chances as Hulkenberg finished 11th.
Debriefing the race, team principal Wheatley said Shanghai further uncovered pain points Audi must address as its focus remains on making its power unit more reliable and easier to drive.
"Look, it's hugely disappointing. First of all, it's the second race in a row where we've only got one car to start the race," Wheatley said. "As a team, we apologise to Gabriel for that. It's something we need to really focus on in terms of our reliability at the moment.
"I think it's a track that exposed our weaknesses in many areas. It remains a challenge for us to get on top of these driveability issues. Basically, Nico had a couple of situations in Turn 6 that were hard to recover from because you've got to get the engine back in its operating window.
"We're at race two. What I'm seeing at the moment is that Mercedes and Ferrari obviously have a very usable package. But I don't see anyone else having an easy time with it. I think they're a challenge to drive, these cars, at the moment."
One way to catch up is by qualifying for the brand-new Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) system that gives manufacturers that are behind the chance to develop their otherwise frozen combustion engines after every six races. The cancellation of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia would theoretically mean teams in that situation would have to wait longer, although there are ideas on the table to restore the original time frame.
When asked about the strength of Audi's power unit, Wheatley said: "What I can tell you is that I had a long conversation with Mattia [Binotto, head of Audi F1] about this. The analysis that we've done, and we're careful about what we say in public about it, one of the areas of focus for us in the next development cycle is the PU. We think there's some work that we can do in that area."
Audi a "long way away" from customer teams
Audi was always going to have the deck stacked against it by virtue of not having any customer teams that can help gather data, a situation that is biting Honda much more dramatically.
But speaking earlier over the Shanghai weekend, Wheatley said it wouldn't be realistic for Audi to support customer teams any time soon.
"I think we’re a long way away from being able to support a customer at the moment," he said on Friday. "But look, we have to be realistic. If you look at the mileage that Mercedes engine teams accrued over the winter testing, it’s something like four times the amount that we were able to, and we had a reliable programme, we still did a lot of mileage.
"But it’s early days in the project. Our ambition at the moment is to be a challenger and to move from challenger to competitive at the right time.
"In terms of the power unit, it’s incredibly complicated. It’s a bold ambition on behalf of Audi to show what they’re capable of in Formula 1.
"We're learning at an incredible rate and it’s going to be interesting to see how the power units develop over the next few years and over the next few months."
