Audi’s Formula 1 chief operating and chief technical officer Mattia Binotto admits that the current Sauber squad’s performances are something it “cannot accept.”
While German manufacturer Audi has been working on building the foundations it needs for its official arrival as a works team in 2026, it has not gone amiss that the results of the Sauber team it is taking over are far from ideal.
The Swiss-based outfit currently lies 10th and last in the F1 constructors’ championship and is the only team that has failed to score a point so far this season.
And while the operation will be very different when things switch to become Audi in two years’ time, Binotto says that the marque cannot ignore what is going on right now.
“We cannot afford it,” said Binotto at the Italian Grand Prix. “I think this is the team that has to become, in the future, a winning team. And the only way to do that is starting to move up, progressing. We need to train our muscles for the future.
“So, yes, I think we need certainly to improve. That's important for ourselves, that's important for the team. It's important for the brand. It's important for our partners. And we cannot somehow accept the current position.”
Binotto says that, while there is much to do longer term to get Audi into a position where it can battle for race wins, a big push also needs to be made in lifting its fortunes right now.
“We cannot hide behind the fact that we have been last and second last in the Zandvoort race, and qualifying [here], the same positions some distance to the cars ahead. So, we need to put effort in improving.
“We need to balance all the priorities and our efforts from the short to the medium and the long term. But I don't think certainly that our position today is a comfortable one for us at all. It's very painful.
“As I said, we need to train our muscles, and we need to improve because the solid foundations do not come in one day. It's a team that needs to do continuous progress every single day, step by step. So, starting from as soon as possible I would say.”
Binotto officially began work at Audi/Sauber on 1 August and has spent the last few weeks evaluating where things are at.
And the early verdict is that there is a great deal of work needed to evolve the squad into the kind of race-winning operation that he experienced at Ferrari when he was its team principal.
“In a couple of weeks, you cannot see everything,” he explained. “Certainly, you've got only a first impression of what you may find or see, both in Hinwil for the chassis, or in Neuburg for the powertrain.
“But I think there are great people. We've got a clear intentions and objectives, ahead of us to become a winning team. But certainly, there is much to do, that is the first feedback.
“We are competing against teams that have been for many years in F1. They are big organisations, up and down. And that is not our case.
“We need to ramp up in terms of people, in terms of organisation, in terms of tools, process, methodologies, facilities. We need to merge, certainly, with what we're doing in Hinwil together with the one we are doing in Neuburg on the powertrain.
“And it's about as well, culture and mindset, because to become a winning team, it's about changing our mindset towards what is required.”
Binotto reckoned it would take several years before he could imagine Audi being ready to succeed.
Audi CEO Gernot Doellner admitted that as Audi has come to better understand the challenge of F1, it has accepted that it may take longer than it originally thought to win.
“We see our F1 project as really a long-term project,” he said. “After I joined Audi, in September of last year, we did an evaluation of our project, and it ended up with the set-up we found, and also we maybe recalibrated our time path to a more realistic one.
“We can't tell details as we are still discussing several aspects of how to sort it out, but I think we are quite realistic when it comes to time.”
