Audi keeps knocking on the door: 'We need to capitalise on our performance'

In Audi's first-ever Formula 1 race, Bortoleto finished ninth to claim two points for the German team in Australia. Immediately during their first race with an in-house power unit, Audi claimed F1 points.

No further points have been added to the team's tally since then. Over the following six Grands Prix, either Bortoleto or Nico Hulkenberg finished 11th on four occasions. Audi has also been a regular contender for Q3 spots, usually battling Alpine and Racing Bulls. In Barcelona, Hulkenberg successfully reached Q3, but his race was cut short after an unfortunate incident.

Answering GPblog's question about constantly Audi knocking on the door, McNish said: "Sadly, [we feel] a bit frustrated after Barcelona. Also after Monaco actually because in Monaco we had another couple of points but they were taken away with the penalty for Nico, which we think was a very harsh penalty. But you know the stewards decisions are the stewards decisions, so you have to accept them. All in all, we've got a performance level that is knocking on the door of Q3 and within time these I would say positive qualifying performances and the potential will turn into results."

He continued: "It's a case of focusing on the areas that we need to still work on to make sure that those happen. When I think about where we are, we're race 8 into a 22-race season, and it's the beginning of our, I would say, team life as well. And so with the performance we've got, then we need to capitalise on it to obviously get those points in the bag. But right now, and Barcelona was a good example. There was very little we could actually have done about it, but they were there for the taking."

Audi is currently battling customer teams while also focusing on its brand-new power unit. "Certainly, we know that the first season of the power unit was always going to be difficult building it from ground zero," he added. "And I think there's been definitely some areas where we've worked on it quite hard and improved quite a lot the reliability as well.

"And so in that respect, it's always been a non-factor. It was a very complex situation and it was not going to be an easy one to come out with the best power unit in total, but just with regard to where we are you know I don't think that was a factor in our our issues in Barcelona or race result in the end, but obviously we're looking to see how we can improve on that and every other point on the car and the team as well," McNish concluded.