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The German marque will make its F1 debut this year after completing a full takeover of Sauber

Audi will compete with a silver, black and red livery for its much-anticipated debut campaign in Formula 1, the team confirmed on Tuesday.

The reveal came during the German marque’s 2026 season launch event in Berlin, which follows its takeover of the historic Sauber team. It was first revealed that the squad would rebrand as Audi back in 2022, following heavy investment in the team.

The debut car for the team will be known as the ‘R26’ and will be predominantly silver but with a black engine cover and blocks of red underneath, while title sponsor Revolut features heavily.

“So far it has been smooth,” Audi F1 chief Mattia Binotto said about the project after joining in 2024. “Why it has been smooth? I think it's because of the commitment of Audi.

“Audi has been really very supportive since day one, day zero, really being fully committed to our project, in love with the project, I would say.

“Once you know that you've got the full support of the brand, you've got the full support of the board and they give you the means which are required to deploy the plan, that's the most important at the end.

“And then deploying a plan, it's always, you may have good days or bad days. This is part of the job. But overall, I think so far, great.”

Audi F1 Team R26 livery

It is currently unknown, however, how Audi will fare given its debut will coincide with a completely new set of regulations - arguably the biggest rule change in F1 history.

The chassis will become lighter and smaller, while greater emphasis will be placed on electric energy as it’ll share a near 50-50 split with the internal combustion engine.

“Everyone is hitting the track properly next week,” said technical director James Key of the first F1 2026 pre-season test in Barcelona on 26-30 January.

“So, I think there's still a lot to learn about these cars. We'll be there, obviously, we've run already back on 9 January, so we've got a little reference point from that.

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“But it's a bit of a voyage of discovery and for us, as a new power unit company as well, we'll be concentrating on lots of laps and reliability, really.

“We need to get - for the guys in Neuburg on the engine side, they need track data. Everything apart from the 9 January when we did our filming day has been virtual or dyno.

“So we've really got to get track data for them. So we're going to be concentrating on laps. Obviously, learning a little bit about the tyres and so on. And then as we get to Bahrain, we'll see the performance side coming up.”

Extra pre-season dates in Bahrain (11-13 and 18-20 February) will follow Barcelona ahead of the Melbourne opener on 6-8 March, with Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto driving for Audi.