Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley will be the two main figures tasked with steering the transition and takeover from Sauber to Audi, ahead of the historic Formula 1 debut in 2026 with the arrival of the new technical regulations. Despite the two recent and fundamental additions, not everyone seems to be convinced by the German house’s project with the four rings. A few days ago, Formula 1 analyst Craig Slater described Sainz’s refusal to join Audi as “a clear sign that things are not going well”. But in addition to the British journalist, Eddie Jordan also expressed his doubts when he spoke last week on the Formula for Success podcast.
big question mark
“I spoke to someone who has a good overview of how things are going at Audi. He didn’t say anything ambiguous, but he described it to me as a disaster and pointed out that the team can’t even put a steering wheel on the car at the moment. “The clashes at the top show that things are going very badly at the moment,” Jordan told David Coulthard on the podcast, after which he continued: “You and I (editor David Coulthard) are good friends with Allan McNish (director of the film).” We wish him well, but the task he has taken on is enormous. Building a car and running it from Switzerland, including production, is a big question mark. We saw what happened to Toyota once: they came and tried to do it their way and it didn’t work. The number of teams that did that cost a fortune. It’s a huge challenge. And I have to say that there is no better way to run a race car and a team than in Great Britain. Especially in that area of Northampton and Oxfordshire and some other places. They have such a wealth of knowledge. They have the mentality to be able to do it.” “Win or be the best.”
Complexity and timelines
“Suppliers in the region understand the complexities and the timelines that people have to adhere to. For example, when you order a machine in Switzerland, you are given four days, four weeks, four months and you can’t do anything. If you are in the UK, you can sit down with your supplier and say: ‘If you don’t do this, you won’t get any more work, so you might as well drop everything and do this.’ And they work day and night for that. The philosophy is that there is a racing culture, it’s in the DNA. I think what Audi is doing is fundamentally wrong.”
Great Britain is the place to be.
“I think if you really want to be world champion and win a Grand Prix, Britain has long established itself as the backbone of that,” Coulthard added, echoing Eddie Jordan. “Ferrari is a case in point, historically it has grown, but to achieve this result you needed a large European workforce. Time will tell whether Audi will be successful or not.”
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