Nico Hulkenberg’s relief was written all over his face as he crossed the line at the Hungaroring. After months of frustration, missed opportunities and near-misses, Audi’s veteran finally had something tangible to celebrate: his first points of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
The German finished ninth in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, ending a drought that had lingered far longer than either he or the team felt it should have.
Starting from 10th on the grid, Hulkenberg executed a well-timed two-stop strategy and came alive in the closing stages on soft tyres, sweeping past team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto and Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad to secure two valuable points.
The result may have been modest in numbers, but it felt significant inside the Audi garage.
“Obviously better to have points than not. It’s been a long time coming this season,” Hulkenberg said after the race.
The 38-year-old had repeatedly flirted with the top 10 during the opening half of the campaign, only for circumstances, strategy swings or incidents to deny him a breakthrough. Hungary finally delivered the reward.
“There were many occasions and opportunities this year where it should've happened but it didn’t for various reasons, so that was annoying but that’s racing sometimes for you,” he added.
Reward at last for Audi
Audi’s pace throughout the 70-lap race suggested the team belonged firmly in the fight for best of the rest behind Formula 1’s established frontrunners.
Hulkenberg briefly looked capable of mounting a late challenge against Liam Lawson, but traffic from the leading cars interrupted that pursuit.
Even so, ninth place represented a major step forward for Audi in its first season under its new identity.
©Audi
“I and the team knew it’s there – it was just a matter of time and putting it together. Finally, the piece fell into place. We converted a solid job yesterday [in Qualifying] and today we got the reward,” said the F1 veteran.
Those two points lifted Audi ahead of Williams into eighth place in the constructors’ championship heading into Formula 1’s summer break, and they also extended the team’s recent momentum.
The Hinwil squad has now scored points in three consecutive race weekends following Bortoleto’s impressive eighth-place finishes at Silverstone and Spa.
Bortoleto sees a team on the rise
Bortoleto narrowly missed out on adding to that streak in Budapest, crossing the line 11th after gambling on a one-stop strategy that ultimately faded in the final stint. Despite the disappointment, the Brazilian was upbeat about the team’s trajectory.
“I think it’s a very positive thing. I think the team have been doing an incredible job and I’m very happy with what we have been doing this season so far,” he said.
©Audi
The rookie’s race became an exercise in tyre management rather than outright attack, and he admitted the strategy demanded almost impossible levels of conservation.
“I think I gave it all. It obviously was not an easy race,” he explained.
“I tried a one-stop strategy – it was tough to make it work, obviously, with the hard tyre being quite a bad compound compared to the soft.”
“I had to extend that first stint a lot and survive like 30 laps on the soft. After that, putting on the hard, I survived another 20 laps and then after that it was pure deg, so a tough one.”
While Bortoleto left Budapest empty-handed, Audi departed with something perhaps even more valuable than a couple of championship points: confirmation that its recent progress is becoming a trend rather than a one-off.
For Hulkenberg, though, the story of the weekend was far more personal. After waiting through race after race for the breakthrough he believed was coming,
Hungary finally allowed him to stop talking about what might have been and start talking about what had finally happened.
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