The Audi F1 team has immediately taken the shackles off at the first pre-season test of F1 2026 in Bahrain, arriving with new sidepod bodywork, which will surely raise some eyebrows and signal its intent.
This follows the team’s use of more conventional bodywork for the three-day shakedown event at Barcelona and brings to mind the tactic employed by Mercedes in 2022, when the team later unveiled its famous B-spec ‘zeropod’ solution.
Audi F1 shrinking the game
The new solution, as you’d expect, is a much more detail orientated option, with an inverted inlet layout that’s been stretched further forward and runs vertically up the side of the chassis and also affords much more room to be created beside for flow…