Audi warned over F1 2026 challenge as worrying Toyota comparison made

Audi’s upcoming participation in F1 must be careful not to fall into the same trap as Toyota.

The arrival of Audi in F1 2026 could face some of the same challenges that prevented Toyota from progressing during its time in the sport.

Timo Glock has welcomed the pending arrival of Audi, but has pinpointed some challenges he foresees the team needing to overcome if it doesn’t want to perform in similar fashion to the Toyota F1 squad.

Timo Glock: I don’t expect Audi F1 to be competitive immediately

Audi is ramping up its F1 preparations ahead of entry in 2026, having opted for a full takeover of the Sauber F1 team.

The Swiss team, which has raced under various guises as Sauber, BMW, Alfa Romeo and, currently, Kick Sauber, entered F1 in 1993 and is based out of Hinwil in Switzerland.

However, with Sauber running from Switzerland and Audi running a second campus from Neuberg in Germany, former Toyota F1 driver Timo Glock believes this could be an extra hurdle for the burgeoning team to overcome as it finds its feet in F1.

“I think they have a big challenge in front of them because you could see this happening with Sauber and BMW, having two factories,” Glock told the Formula For Success podcast.

“One is in Switzerland, and one is in Germany, to get things together.

“Having the team based in Germany, like with Toyota, the top guys are all in England and based in England.

“It’s very difficult to get them over to Germany. I think that they have a big challenge ahead of them. But on the other side, I think they have the power to do it.

“With Andreas Seidl [Sauber and Audi F1 CEO] being in position, he knows exactly what it needs to be a successful Formula 1 team but, of course, it’s going to be a challenge for them. I’m not expecting them to be straight up there in the first year.”

But Glock said he’s hopeful the arrival of Audi – having already signed Nico Hulkenberg as one of its drivers – will bolster interest in F1 in Germany as the country angles for a return to the F1 calendar after several years without a race.

“With the experience they have with Nico now, this is a great signal for Germany,” he said.

“Having a German manufacturer with a German driver could boost it up again in Germany.

“Hopefully, we’ll see them up. But against all the top teams, it’s going to be very, very difficult to be right there and be competitive.”

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Glock also gave examples of how the disconnect between two different F1 campuses could have an effect on the competitiveness of a big manufacturer team.

Toyota raced in Formula 1 between 2002 and 2009 and, despite having one of the biggest budgets in the sport, failed to make a huge impact during its participation as the factory in Cologne constantly had to report back to Japan.

Glock recounted his experience with Toyota, having driven for the team during its final two years in F1, and explained how the inability for the team to be nimble in its decision-making had a huge impact on its competitiveness.

“I never had this really on my radar that this could be a problem for us,” he said.

“Because when I walked in at Toyota, we were walking through the facilities and then driving with the bike from facility to facility because it was so big.

“There was everything you can imagine to build a Formula 1 car, to build a winning F1 car.

“We had two wind tunnels. We had every R&D thing which you can think of, everything was there and I was just shocked by the company and what pressure that brought to me.

“I was out there to drive that F1 car and represent Toyota as a manufacturer, plus all the 1200 people or whatever working in Cologne. That was just the overloading thing at the beginning.

“But I realised very quickly that the problem was at Toyota – not the people, they were really, really good.

“It was decision-making progress, decisions having to be done very quickly took us far too long to decide things.

“For example, we had upgrades on the car, which were sort of in the grey area, and then it got stopped by Japan. So they had everything to double-check with Japan.

“I remember one rear wing, which was sort of stalling at the right time, sort of like a DRS effect.

“We were running this already straight-line testing and it was ready to go. It gave us half a second, at least. They stopped it in Japan because it was just in the grey area. They said@ ‘No, no, no, we don’t want to be disqualified, we cannot go in that direction.’

“Things like this just stopped us from making that last step.”

Toyota ended up pulling out of F1 after 2009, just as its performance looked enough to join in the fight for regular podiums. Glock said he felt the team were right on the cusp of being serious contenders, having heard what the aborted 2010 car could have been capable of.

“The 2010 car would have been a really, really good car. Definitely,” he said.

“I know that from guys from Toyota who moved to Ferrari at the time when Toyota stopped in 2009. They had the exact aero numbers. We were 10 to 15 points ahead of Ferrari in 2010 but the 2010 car never saw a racetrack.

“There are a lot of things when I think back, I would have loved to drive the 2010 car because I think that would have been a contender for definitely a top three.”

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