Again in Spain

The Audi Revolut F1 team has enjoyed another scoring outing, this time at the debut race at Spain’s Madring circuit in Madrid. A weekend of tight racing on the new circuit saw the two Audis right in the thick of it again throughout practice and into qualifying, narrowly missing out on making it to Q3, but still coming out fighting in the race on a circuit that has already shown that it does not lend itself to overtaking.

Once again it was Nico Hulkenberg in Car #27 who managed to score – the third time so far this season that the German has banked points. In Spain, he was able to land the final points-paying position, coming home in 10th thanks to a spirited drive and superb work in the pits from the Audi Revolut F1 Team crew.

“Overall, we’re happy to have gained a point. It was always going to be a difficult race from a strategy point of view, with overtaking being very difficult and it looking strongly like a one-stop race,” Racing Director, Allan McNish said after the race.

“We dropped positions again at the start, which is an area we know is one of our weaknesses, but from there I was very pleased with how we worked as a team.”

Starting the race in 11th, Hulkenberg managed to avoid traffic and numerous incidents in the early laps to consolidate and then improve his position. The advent of a virtual safety car enabled him to pit for new rubber, where an outstanding performance from the pit crew saw him climb into the top 10.

“We got the maximum out of what we had today. Starting on the soft tyre meant the early Virtual Safety Car was the right window for us to pit, and the pit crew did a fantastic job to get me ahead of Esteban [Ocon],” Hulkenberg said of the result.

Unfortunately, the timing of the virtual safety car was not as fortuitous for Nico’s teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, who despite a strong start ultimately finished in 13th.

“We got unlucky with the Virtual Safety Car today, which pretty much messed up with our plans, and after that nothing else happened until the end of the race,” the Brazilian said.

“Overall, it's been a weekend of learnings. It wasn’t the best, but it was not all that bad either, and I have quite enjoyed racing around here. In qualifying, we were close to making it into Q3 again, and that was more or less where our pace has been all weekend.”

For McNish, while frustrating to come so close once again to seeing both drivers in the points, the progress of the team in general is very pleasing and once again shows definite progress. The result and the point scored also brings the team’s total to 17 for the season to date – only four shy of Haas in seventh place in the championship.

“Ultimately, I have to say the point today was delivered by the team in the pits. Nico came in behind Ocon and went out ahead of him after a fantastically quick stop, and the team repeated that performance when Gabi came in. It was a very good team effort, strategically, in the pits and from both drivers. It’s another point for us, and now we look forward to Baku.”