Audi has crazy F1 goals but how can it possibly back them up?

Hulkenberg and Bortoleto in grey revolut F1 kit with R26 background — Photo: © IMAGO

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Audi has crazy F1 goals but how can it possibly back them up?

Jonathan Wheatley has suggested that Audi want to be the most successful team ever

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Sunday 1 February 2026 12:58

Ahead of their first season in the sport in 2026, the Audi F1 team have made some pretty staggering statements about their goals over the last few weeks.

Audi have taken over the Sauber team and are joining F1 as both a power unit manufacturer and as a team, keeping the driver lineup the same as Sauber in 2025, as well as team principal Jonathan Wheatley.

And it was the former Red Bull sporting director who may just have overestimated what Audi can become in F1, revealing some crazy goals.

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Speaking at the team's season launch event earlier in January, Wheatley said: "We're not here to mess around, it's an ambitious project. We're humble. We know where we're starting from and we know where we want to go.

"We want to make Audi the most successful F1 team in history. There are milestones on that journey and we are starting it today."

Hang on a moment. The most successful team in F1 history? That is just a completely unachievable goal for a brand who are only just joining the sport.

The team who currently hold that mantle are Ferrari who, after being in F1 since the 1950 season have managed to amass 31 world championship titles, 248 grand prix victories and a whopping 836 grand prix podiums.

Audi are starting from zero on all of those statistics.

Even if Ferrari were to fold as an F1 team in 2027 (not going to happen considering the ever-increasing value of F1 teams in this age) then it would still take Audi a MINIMUM of 36 seasons to exceed those numbers.

And that isn't even taking into consideration the fact that the second most successful team in F1 history, McLaren, would still be in the sport competing with Audi, as would Williams, Red Bull and all of the other established teams on the grid.

McLaren themselves have 23 championships across their F1 history, making Wheatley's statement truly baffling.

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Of course, it's great to have ambition, and by all means I'd much rather Audi were saying this than shrugging their shoulders and stating that they're 'just here to make up the numbers.'

But that ambition has to have at least a shred of plausibility. Like, for example, the head of the Audi project Mattia Binotto's quotes about wanting to be a world championship-winning team by 2030.

This would take some going from a standing start, but it is certainly feasible that Audi could win a world championship one day. That kind of goal would not rely on 10 other teams completely ceasing to win any grands prix or world championships in the next 35 seasons.

This kind of goal gives something for the whole team to work towards, and it's an objective that the majority of the team probably did not have when they were working under the Sauber name.

It also, of course, attracts more interest and sponsor activity in the team, with Binotto practically inviting us on board the Audi hype train.

In 2026, expect to see them struggling in the midfield with drivers Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg, but beginning to add race victories in the seasons beyond that is not beyond all possibility, especially if they can become a real force on the power unit manufacturing side of things like Mercedes have managed over the last 32 years.

But please, Mr Wheatley, don't disrespect the achievements of legendary F1 outfits like Ferrari, McLaren and Williams - who have been at the top of the sport for decades - by spouting nonsense that just cannot mathematically be achieved.

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F1 Audi Jonathan Wheatley Mattia Binotto