Audi's Power Unit woes deepen: Bortoleto fears more lost positions at race start

Gabriel Bortoleto has delivered a disarmingly candid assessment of Audi's prospects ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, openly conceding that the Sao Paulo-born rookie fully expects to lose positions off the line — unless chaos at the front works in his favour.

Honesty Over Optimism

The remarks follow a troubling pattern established in the sprint earlier in the weekend, where both Bortoleto and team-mate Nico Hülkenberg lost four positions each at the start — an embarrassing advertisement for the shortcomings of Audi's debut Formula 1 power unit.

Qualifying Frustration

"To be honest, very unhappy with the session, unhappy with the balance, with how I was driving," Bortoleto admitted. "I don't think we maximised everything we had today, that's the truth. Just sliding all over the place, felt like driving on ice."

The contrast with the previous day was stark. "Yesterday I was much more happy with the balance, with the driveability of the engine, and everything felt much more smooth, and today it was just sideways everywhere and I didn't have confidence to brake, and then downshifts were extremely harsh — just difficult."

This comes in a weekend where George Russell claimed a stunning pole position for Mercedes, underlining just how far back Audi remains in the competitive order on raw performance.

Power Unit at the Root of the Problem

Bortoleto was unequivocal in identifying the source of Audi's struggles, pointing squarely at the power unit rather than the chassis.

"We are suffering a lot with power unit driveability, with power, that we need to work and improve," he said. "We are trying, we are bringing things, update on software, trying to make it better, but some stuff works, some stuff didn't and we learn from them."

For Audi — a manufacturer that arrived in Formula 1 with enormous ambition and the weight of a storied automotive legacy — these are sobering admissions. The gap between expectation and current reality is plain to see, and Bortoleto's refusal to dress it up in false positivity only underlines how genuine the challenge is. The development path is clear; the urgency, undeniable.