Audi won’t upgrade F1 power unit again until 2027

Audi has announced that they will not perform another power unit update for their Formula 1 team until the end of the 2026 season. Racing Director Allan McNish revealed this during an interview with Motorsport.com. The team's first power unit upgrade was introduced at the start of the season in an effort to address driveability issues that had been a weakness of their R26 engine.

Since then, Audi has scored points in the last three rounds of the season, with Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg contributing to those results. While the team has shown improvement, McNish emphasized that any significant power unit updates would not be introduced until 2027, citing budget constraints as the primary reason. He explained that stretching resources too thin in a single season would hinder their ability to compete effectively in subsequent seasons.

The team acknowledged that their performance improvements this year have been partially driven by power unit-related enhancements, both on the power unit itself and the chassis. However, McNish stressed that these advancements were still in the early stages and that the team would continue to iterate and evolve throughout the remainder of the 2026 season.

When asked about the potential magnitude of the power unit update in 2027, McNish playfully remarked, "That's '27. Give us a break. We're only halfway through '26, I need my cup of tea first." He stressed that any changes to the power unit would involve substantial hardware modifications, a process that cannot be rushed.