With this recurring column, ooooIYKYK aims to summarize activities of Audi racing campaigns and competition endeavors. This weekly series brief updates of results, preparation, happenings and rumors pertaining to on track activities. See a full calendar of motorsport activities involving Audi Sport factory, customer and Sauber F1 teams maintained HERE.
OPEN WHEEL RACING
FORMULA 1 ROUND #5, F1 CRYPTO.COM MIAMI GRAND PRIX 🇺🇸
Miami Grand Prix Weekend Racing Recap
The Miami Grand Prix is the sixth round of the 2025 season, taking the F1 racing machine to the first of five North American rounds that also include the Montreal, Austin, Mexico City and Las Vegas.
Miami is a Sprint round, meaning a shorter race for points on Sunday followed by the main Grand Prix on Sunday, with all the usual qualifying, practice and extracurricular activities that go into an F1 race week.
Still in the pre-Audi phase of operation, Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber seems to be setting the pace again this season to focus on dialing in their knowledge base of aerodynamics, chassis improvement and familiarizing their new-for-2025 drivers, relegating them to the back half of the F1 grid where simply netting points can be counted a coup.
In the Sprint race, hard rains proved an X factor, shuffling the field and allowing Nico Hulkenberg to finish ninth, narrowly scoring a point for the team by finishing .338 seconds behind the Mercedes-Benz of Kimi Antonelli who did score a point. Gabriel Bortoleto finished the Sprint Race in 15th, ahead of Jack Doohan (Alpine Renault) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing), plus a number of drivers who DNFed including Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Carolos Sainz (Williams) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).
Gabriel Bortoleto’s making it to the Q2 in the main qualifying session and placing 13th on the grid was another notable highlight of the weekend. In the main race, Nico finished 14th (+ 1 Lap) ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), plus several DNF results including Lam Lawson (Racing Bulls), his Sauber teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, Oliver Bearman (Haas) and Jack Doohan (Alpine).
Jonathan Wheatley, Team Principal
“Today’s race saw both our drivers get off the line well and deliver strong first stints.
Unfortunately, we had to retire Gabriel due to a technical issue-potentially related to the fuel system-though we’ll know more once we’ve had a proper look at the car. Nico, starting from P16, pushed hard through the field. In hindsight, we may have benefited from boxing under the Virtual Safety Car, and that’s something we’ll need to analyse carefully. Despite the setbacks, the team delivered two very clean pit stops-2.2 and 2.5 seconds-which is a real credit to the crew. A lot of hard work went into this weekend, and we’ll take the lessons forward as we prepare for the European leg of the season.”
Nico Hulkenberg (Car #27)
Race result: 14th
Fastest lap: 1:31.015 (Lap 43)
Strategy & Pit Stops: Start (New Hard) – Lap 37 (New Medium)
“It’s been a pretty clean race today and felt like one of the better ones this year. I managed to stay out of trouble at Turn One, when Lawson and Doohan collided, and worked on building a decent race pace. In contrast to most of the other cars I was on a reverse strategy, starting with hard tyres to deliver a long first stint. We didn’t take the opportunity of the first Virtual Safety Car to make a pit stop, which is something we need to review with the team. However, it feels like we’ve taken another step forward this weekend.
With a bit more performance and improved car balance, we believe we can get closer to fighting for points. With those improvements in mind, we’re now looking forward to starting the European part of the season.”
Gabriel Bortoleto (Car #5)
Race result: DNF
Fastest lap: 1:31.015 (Lap 21)
Strategy & Pit Stops: Start (New Medium) – Lap 20 (New Hard)
“It was a decent race up to the point we had to retire. We were solidly running in P13, just behind Ocon and ahead of Gasly, and I felt we could’ve held that position to the end. The pace was what we expected -we were a bit behind Haas and RB but still in the mix. Unfortunately, I started losing power on the straights in, what became my final laps, then had two big cuts in the corners, and eventually the car just shut down completely. From what I’ve been told, it looks like a fuel system issue that affected us, but I haven’t had time to analyse it with the team yet. It’s a shame, especially as DNFs have been rare in my career, but that’s part of the game. We can still take quite a few positive from the weekend-our single-lap performance and the pace we had before the issue are points on which we can build. We’ll look into everything we experienced this weekend, learn from it, and come back stronger for the next one.”
Unexpected Fun Race of Drivable LEGO Builds for Teams at Miami Grand Prix
Part of the Miami race weekend included an unexpected contest between the F1 team grid when driver pairs took toe the track in life-sized equivalents of LEGO’s F1 Speed Champions range rather than the usual drivers parade truck.
The event was part of a multi-year partnership between F1 and the brick manufacturer, and it is said to be the first of several LEGO moments for families at F1 race weekends planned for this season.
The cars were constructed by a team of 26 designers, engineers and LEGO builders, taking 22,000 hours to assemble in the LEGO Group’s Kladno factory located in the Czech Republic. Each car is comprised of approximately 400,0000 LEGO bricks and weighs 1,000 kg.
Alas, they only reach speeds up to 20 km/h, but that didn’t stop drivers from doing what F1 drivers do – competitively race wheel-to-wheel, likely to the chagrin of LEGO’s assembly team as bricks can and did get knocked off.
Upon seeing the bricks breaking off cars in the melee, Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen commented, “They’ll have to sweep the track, there’s quite a bit of LEGO debris on the track”. Given his first-born daughter Lily was delivered just days before on May 2, it’s impossible that Max is dropping fatherly wisdom just yet, so perhaps this was still his renowned competitive nature rather than empathy for any barefoot Miami corner workers.
Following the Miami event, all 10 LEGO F1 life-sized builds will embark on a global tour with appearances at future races. For more information, fans can visit LEGO.com/F1.
Fine Tuning Personnel at Audi F1 Project
Audi Sport has shared some personnel announcements as its F1 project progresses towards their debut as an Audi factory team next season.
As Head of Audi F1 Project, Mattia Binotto will manage development activities at the Hinwil and Neuburg an der Donau facilities, as well as at the future technical center in England. To further integrate the operation, Christian Foyer has joined the management board of Audi Formula Racing GmbH (AFR) where he will also assume the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) and will be responsible for the F1 hybrid powertrain. Stefan Dreyer will continue as head of power unit development in Neuburg as CTO and also take on the task of operating as spokesperson for the AFR management board.
In the meantime, Jonathan Wheatley is settling in as Team Principal and also Management Board Spokesperson at Sauber Motorsport AG. Wheatley will work in collaboration with Binotto in transforming the racing team. He will focus on managing race operations of the Audi F1 Team and represent the brand as team principal in Formula 1’s strategic forums.
Tiësto Music Takeover at Miami Grand Prix, Featured on F1 The Album
Formula 1’s impressive collaborative tie-ins continued to impress at Miami where GRAMMY Award-winner Tiësto performed on the bridge over the grid just moments before the formation laps began, then again from the podium after the race.
His show in Miami wasn’t the only tie-in mind you. Tiësto is also one of the artists on F1 THE ALBUM, which is the soundtrack to the upcoming F1 The Movie. Other artists will include Don Toliver featuring Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran, Tate McRae, RAYE, Burna Boy, ROSÉ, Roddy Rich, Dom Dolla, Chris Stapleton, Sexyy Red, Myke Towers, Madison Beer, Peggy Gou and more. While it’s available for pre-order now, the album drops on June 27 in conjunction with the theatrical release of the movie.
Formula 1 Extends Agreements for Miami and Mexican Grands Prix
Other news emanating from Miami Grand Prix race weekend centered around the extension of contracts for two key races that make up part of the North American group of races on the calendar.
First up is Miami, with the event with a ten-year extension that now sees it locked in through 2041. The new deal makes Miami, managed by promoter South Florida Motorsports, the longest contracted race on the Formula 1 Calendar.
Built around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, home of the Miami Dolphins, the ATP and WTA Miami Open, and seven matches at next year’s FIFA World Cup, the event’s, 5.41 km circuit boasts 19 corners and three straights where drivers hit an estimated top speed of 320 km/h.
Next up is Mexico City. That race has also been extended three years, locking it into the F1 calendar through 2028. Mexico returned as an event in 2015, and since that time has established itself as a standout event.
The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit was built in 1959. Situated more than 2 km above sea level, the venue challenges drivers and cars to manage altitude while also contending with the circuit’s 4.3 km lap that includes notable features like the super fast Peraltada corner and picturesque Estadio stadium section that can house more than 60,000 fans.
NEXT ROUND F1 AWS GRAN PREMIO DEL MADE IN ITALY E DELL’EMILIA-ROMAGNA 🇮🇹
Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Italy (May 16 – May 18)
SPORTSCAR RACING – GT3, GT4 & TCR CUSTOMER RACING
Worth noting, Audi Sport has begun publishing weekly customer racing race summaries. As a result, the race updates on ooooIYKYK will become even more inclusive now that updates on all customer racing activities are emanating from the team itself. Thanks to Audi Sport customer racing for continuing to keep fans up to date on Audi Sport customer racing activities around the world.
GT WORLD CHALLENGE AUSTRALIA (GT3) ROUNDS 3 & 4, GT FESTIVAL SYDNEY
Strong Showing and Podium Results for Audi Customers in Sydney
The strongest showing for Audi in Australia at the GT Festival Sydney goes to Ryan Wood and Steve Brooks who put in a strong showing in their Audi R8 LMS EVO 2 GT3. They began the weekend fastest in Free Practice 1. And though they just managed sixth in the first round, a round with no R8s on podium, they managed second place in the second round. A second R8 driven by the duo of Feeney and Schumacher finished third in that race.
RALLY & HILLCLIMB RACING
BROADMOOR PIKES PEAK INTERNATIONAL HILLCLIMB 🇺🇸
Michèle Mouton and Audi Featured on 2025 Pike’s Peak International Hillclimb Winning Poster Design
The organizers of the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), presented by Gran Turismo, have announced the winning entry in their 2025 Poster Art Contest. Artist’s worked with the theme “156 Turns to Glory” in a mission to portray the race in a memorable way.
“This is our third annual art contest that was started as part of our Tom Osborne Community Outreach efforts,” stated PPIHC CEO Melissa Eickhoff. “It’s one of the many activations we do to honor his contribution to the community. The theme proved popular with local artists, as we received nearly two dozen submissions, so choosing one overall winner was no easy task. We’re pleased to offer free copies of the winning poster at Fan Fest, as well as the $1,000 cash prize to the artist.”
The winner, a work known as “Mouton Climber” was presented by Colorado Springs artist Tim Cribbs who commented, “The poster draws its color palette from the Colorado flag, drawing from its shades of blue, red, and white. I took inspiration from the action-packed ‘90s Monte Carlo Rally posters and the art of Initial D, embracing stylized motion and effects to convey movement and speed. The piece was created using a blend of cell-shaded 3D modeling but mostly hours upon hours of traditional stylus and tablet drawing.
“I chose Michèle Mouton and her Audi Quattro as my subjects, probably the most iconic car and driver combination in Pikes Peak’s long history. Her historic victory in ‘85 marked a turning point, raising the stakes and transforming the event into a truly international battle for glory.
“I was drawn to cars from an early age. There was nothing better than the emergence of an iconic combination of a car and its driver – a machine being imbued with the personality of and becoming inseparable from the legacy of its driver; Schumacher and his Ferraris, Dale’s Monte Carlo, McRae’s Impreza, and of course, Michèle’s Quattro.”