'More than a bad start' cost Audi in Austin as Hulkenberg returns another P11 finish

Nico Hulkenberg finished 11th in Austin as Audi once again came agonisingly close to scoring points. It is the third time in the last four races that the German has come home in P11 – something that has become a theme of Audi’s season as a whole.

The team continue to be in the midfield mix, their last big upgrade package bolted on in Baku propelling them into the fight for points. Despite that however, they have only scored once in the last four Grands Prix – Hulkenberg’s P8 in Singapore delivering four much-needed points to the squad.

Things were always going to be tough at the Circuit of The Americas with Gabriel Bortoleto starting from the back after picking up a raft of penalties for taking on new PU components, although he should in theory have enough parts in his pool now to make it to the end of the season without further issue.

That left Hulkenberg to fight for points from P11 on the grid, and another poor start made his quest even tougher.

“You can’t call that a bad start, it went into anti-stall so yeah, that’s more than a bad start,” the German said afterwards.

“A strange one as normally the anti-stall kicks in instantly, and I did a few metres and then it kicked in. Sounded and felt a bit odd, but obviously don’t know what happened, [I'm] fresh out of the car so I need to go back and see what happened and why. But of course, it didn’t help our cause for the race.”

Audi have struggled with reliability this season, especially regarding their power unit. As the only team running the Audi PU, they have significantly less data to draw on than the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari, who each supply customer teams.

But while Hulkenberg failed to start two of the first four races, of late the reliability has been much better – Silverstone was the last time he failed to see the chequered flag. But starts remain an issue, with both cars often losing out off the line and leaving them on the back foot.

“You saw again today we were quite close pace-wise with Pierre [Gasly] and with Liam [Lawson], and obviously we came from behind after that start but not sure we could have done a whole lot more from there,” he added.

“It would have all [been] dependent on how with a good start [where] we would have come out, we can only speculate but it is what it is now.”

Audi sit eight in the Teams' Championship, seven points adrift of Haas in the fight for seventh. While they seem to have the edge on the American team on pace, the opportunities to score are few and far between at the moment.

As for Bortoleto, he enjoyed his afternoon on track, albeit from the back of the field knowing that making it back towards the top 10 would be a tough ask.

“We did a good race, overtook some cars, kept it clean at the same time you know, no damage. I had a bit of fun overtaking people and being out there, trying my best, putting in some good [racing]. Obviously, it is difficult to recover everything starting from the back,” the Brazilian said.

He crossed the line 13th, and like his team mate has five P11 results to his name this season. It has been so often the case of close but not close enough for Audi, who have not been helped by Racing Bulls ahead having strong reliability and two drivers in good form.

But all things considered, Audi are enjoying a solid season with the new generation of cars. They have taken the right direction with their upgrades, have an established driver pairing that work well together and have weathered the disruption of Jonathan Wheatley leaving.

All of which means the team have a good base from which to launch into 2027, as they try and climb up the order and challenge more consistently for points.