The Athletic

The Races.

The race is on, and Audi became the first team to hold a 2026 F1 launch of sorts,

with an event in Munich, giving us the first taste of how much will change

for Sauba next year. But although it certainly has the heritage, what should we expect from the

future of the latest manufacturer to take on Grand Prix racing? I'm Ed's draw and joined me to

tell us all about the event is Scott Mitchell Malm. Well, Scott, so, Audi have taken everybody by surprise and become the first team to launch a 2026 car, right?

Yeah, absolutely. To answer it slightly more accurately, no.

What they've done, obviously this was the use of a show car. What I've liked, and I actually

didn't really appreciate this

until probably late yesterday evening when the event was wrapping up was it was actually quite

nice to see one of these 26 show cars in person, because I don't know about you, but I became

so immune to the 22 show car, because the 22 car got rolled out silverstone in 21 I think in

advance of advance of the new rules and then everyone every team and every team's mother had a

show car that would appear somewhere whereas the 26 car is still so novel.

Actually, seeing it in person, I think actually there are moments where you might have just

briefly let yourself think that was an Audi F1 car.

It wasn't.

It wasn't even the full 2026 livery.

But it's an interesting showcase. i know there's a lot of people

who don't really care about aesthetics and obviously they're not as important as what's under the

under the bodywork or the actual bodywork of the real thing but it's they they can tell a story and for

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