That uncertainty has informed Audi’s approach to procurement: although each F1 driver will be allowed to use only three engines throughout the 2026 season, Audi expects to build somewhere between 50 and 100 in total. The best of the bunch will be reserved for the races, while the rest will be bound for further testing and development.
Each will be worked on by only two engineers, and as we pass the workshop there’s a nervous energy in the air as exhaust systems, blocks and internals are carted around. Everyone seems to be trying their hardest, but to what end remains very unclear.
Deep in the facility lies what Foyer dubs mission control. There’s an immediate shift in the atmosphere as we enter: where the industrial elements of the factory have bare plastered walls and brilliant white lighting, this zone is all painted black, with cinema-style spotlights. Seriousness descends.
To scale the narrow staircase and peep the massive projection of race data is how it must feel to walk into the Pentagon’s nerve centre right as it moves up a peg on the Defcon ladder. There’s an utter barrage of race data, television camera feeds and radio transcripts displayed, yet an air of orderliness remains in the room.
The existence of this room is itself a quirk of how Audi has entered F1. Sauber already has this infrastructure at its base in Hinwil, Switzerland, and the control room there will be operated in parallel with this one in Neuburg. That’s 66 engineers split across two countries, working with another 58 trackside at every grand prix, bringing with them a dizzying number of layers of seniority, tasks and, of course, data.
Team principal Jonathan Wheatley “steers much of the process”, says Foyer, but this seems to be a significant step up in scale compared with his previous tenure as sporting director of Milton Keynes-based Red Bull Racing.
Audi isn’t ignorant of the challenge it has taken on. “Having set 2030 as our objective to fight for a championship, we are fully aware of how difficult it is,” project director Mattia Binotto – a former Scuderia Ferrari principal – tells Autocar. “If we manage our expectations and ambitions, the pressure will be managed, but we need to get used to it. Pressure is a part of our world.”