Gabriel Bortoleto Reveals Audi Focus After Historic F1 Debut

Gabriel Bortoleto delivered Audi a dream start to life in Formula 1 with a points finish at the 2026 season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The Brazilian driver kicked off his second season with a ninth-place finish at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit, delivering points on the German manufacturer's first outing in F1.

"It’s incredible. I’m extremely happy and the team deserves it," said Bortoleto. “A lot of hard work has been put in. Reliable car, reliable engine – a great point to start.”

Gabriel Bortoleto, Audi, Australian GP 2026 — Getty Images / Audi F1 Team

"A very messy" race, says Bartoleto

The race was dominated by the high-speed chess battle drivers faced as they tackled F1's newest technical regulation set, in particular the management of battery packs with electrical energy now accounting for almost 50 percent of the total output from the power units.

Bortoleto dropped places at the start as the grid jumbled by virtue of the difficult new starting procedures created by the lack of MGU-H within this year's PUs, but fought back across the 58-lap event and had closed up to Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad by the chequered flag, though he was ultimately unable to take eighth place off the Briton.

"It was a very messy one, I must say," he explained. "From the start to the end, a lot of things happening - a lot of new things. So quite an interesting one but enjoyable."

Audi enters F1 as the only brand new power unit OEM this year, with its own works team to boot, taking over the Sauber team over the winter after years of preparations at the Hinwil team base as well as the powertrain plant at Neuberg, Germany.

While teammate Nico Hulkenberg was withdrawn from the grid with an issue, Bortoleto's side of the garage was able to underline the impressive reliability of both the R26 chassis and the engine en route to his sixth points finish in F1.

“To finish in the points in our first event as Audi and writing a piece of motorsport history is something the whole team can be extremely proud of," he added.

"It was a positive race at the end of a good weekend for us: the car and the power unit ran reliably throughout the day, which is a great reward for the enormous effort that went in over the winter to get everything ready for the season.

“Overall, it is probably more than we could have expected from the first weekend. This result gives us a good baseline to build from, but we know there are still many areas where we can improve. There are a lot of races ahead of us, and our focus now is on continuing to learn, develop the car and come back even stronger at the next events.”