Technical issue ended Audi’s day at Barcelona F1 test

A technical issue cut Audi’s day short as Formula 1’s pre-season testing got under way in Barcelona.

A five-day ‘shakedown’ is taking place behind closed doors at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with teams allowed three days of running each between 26 and 30 January.

Audi took over the Sauber outfit to enter the world championship for the first time in the German brand’s history, coming in as a new power unit manufacturer as F1 revamps its engine regulations to place greater emphasis on electric energy.

Audi’s first F1 car, named R26, was first shaken down as early as 9 January at Barcelona. However, the first day of collective testing did not go well as Gabriel Bortoleto reportedly caused a red flag when he was struck by a technical issue around 11:30am local time, which ended Audi’s day after the car covered just 27 laps – “a bit of a short day,” the Brazilian admitted.

“We were doing a pretty decent job in the morning, putting some labs onboard, testing some things, we were going in the right direction.

“But as we all expect, this is a shakedown and everything can happen, and we expect to find issues here and there in the car. And we found a couple of problems that unfortunately put us out of the day, basically, from the morning already. So I didn't run really much today.

Gabriel Bortoleto, Audi

“It was expected, this type of things, you know, we're finding everything now to not hopefully find it in the next test or even in the first race of the year.

“Overall, I would say when we were running, positive, good to have a few [laps] with the new car, the new regulations, power unit and everything. So hopefully on the next day I'm driving, I can get a few more laps on board.”

He added: “Regarding the stoppage on track today, you know, as I said, it was a precaution thing as well. And we decided to not run until we fully understand, and to put the car back on track and have a clear run.”

Audi did not specify what the problem actually was but insisted it would not reoccur, with a spokesperson for the team stating: “We detected an issue and decided to stop the car on track as a precaution.

“We have now identified the issue and we'll fix it for the remainder of the week.”

Bortoleto too expressed confidence that the problem wouldn’t set the team back for its remaining two days of running at Barcelona: “It's small things that we even expected to have already, you know.

“Unfortunately, it came a bit early and we couldn't put everything in place to continue, but we're going to analyse data, we're going to understand how to not have these mistakes again – or these issues that we had in the car – and try to have smooth days and a lot of laps, because that's what we need.”

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