Allan McNish: From top driver to racing director of Audi

For 17 years, McNish enjoyed a motor racing career at the highest level. He was a three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and claimed the World Endurance Championship (WEC) in 2013. He also drove in F1 in Toyota’s debut season in 2002.

Thirteen years after he retired from racing, McNish is on the pit wall in F1 with Audi, as their racing director. Few former drivers make such a transition.

“I’m not sure they all have the ambition, the desire and the energy to do it,” the 56-year-old said in an interview in September. “It’s like footballers – not every good football player moves into coaching or management.

“Personally, I like racing, the competition, the hard edge of when the chequered flag falls, you’re either there or you’re not. It’s then a process of everybody working together to make sure it’s better next time. That’s where the drive comes from that maybe some others don’t have.”

McNish is no stranger to Audi. He spent 11 years with the manufacturer, winning two of his three Le Mans titles and the WEC, after which he retired.

He remained loyal to Audi, taking on a director role in their Group Motorsport division, before leading them to the constructors’ title in their debut season in Formula E in 2017-18 as team principal.

When Audi announced their entry into F1 in 2022, McNish became a senior consultant. In January 2026, he was appointed director of the driver development programme before taking on his current role in April.

“Was it on my agenda? No, not really,” the Briton said. “But when an opportunity arises to be a part of an F1 team at this level, it’s not something that happens twice in your lifetime. You have to take these opportunities when you can.

“And there were two things: One is that, having been involved from the beginning, seeing it grow, I know where it can go. The second part is in understanding Audi for such a long period of time, when they commit, they commit. That gave me an element of confidence that we’re on the right journey.”

Supporting Mattia Binotto, chief executive officer and team principal, in Audi’s debut F1 season, McNish oversees sporting matters, engineering coordination, driver management, race strategy and garage operations.

After Jonathan Wheatley resigned as team principal in March, the team took time to consider their structure before creating the new role of racing director. Binotto said McNish was “an easy plug-in”, someone he could “fully trust”.

“First, Allan is a great person,” he said. “He’s been a great driver. He knows Audi very well. He knows racing, what it’s about. He understands the driver’s language, and he knows what it means being on the pit wall, not only because he has been a driver, but he has been a team principal in Formula E.”

Starting at the Miami Grand Prix in May, McNish said he was “thrown in at the deep end”. Five months on, he is still learning on the job.

“There are areas of it that I walked into and understood straight away, and then there were areas where I had to get my feet under the table,” he said. “There are still areas that I need to work on and learn a little bit more myself. Every day’s a school day.”

As a driver with a title-winning pedigree, McNish at least has the ear of the drivers, Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, and can relate to what they are going through. In return, he has their respect. Hulkenberg said McNish’s role was “very fitting”.

“Allan’s been with Audi for a very long time,” he said. “He’s been with us inside the F1 project and team from the beginning, and as an ex-driver, he has a lot of motor sport experience.”

Agreeing it was good to have McNish as a sounding board, Bortoleto said: “There are no doubts about what he achieved in his career. He’s one of the legends of the sport and legends of Audi, so it’s good to have him in the team.”

From the pit wall or in a debrief, McNish said he could appreciate the information provided by the drivers.

“I do think it helps at times, me being in a position where I’ve lived through some of those moments that they are going through as a driver, or in terms of the car and the way it’s reacting, because I can support in some of those areas,” McNish said.

The start to the 2026 season was difficult, but the team have scored points in six of the last nine grands prix to sit eighth in the constructors’ championship. Their best finish has been eighth three times.

McNish said Audi had come through “trials and tribulations” of being a new team and were performing better than expected in some areas, but a repeat of 2025’s rare podium was some way off.

In the team’s former guise as Sauber, Hulkenberg finished third in the British Grand Prix. It was his maiden podium and the team’s first for 13 years.

“If an opportunity comes up, as it did for Nico, we need to be ready to be able to take that,” McNish said. “I think we’re moving in that direction, but I don’t think we’re strong enough yet because we’re still quite fresh in depth.”

For Audi, this season is the first of an initial five-year journey, at the end of which they hope to achieve their aim of fighting for a championship. McNish said there was a lot of work to do before then, but he felt it was “a realistic target”.

“We know where the benchmark is, and we want to be up there, but it takes time to develop a team and technology,” he said. “I would say we’re at the bottom rung of the ladder at the moment, but we certainly can look up and see where the future could be.” NYTIMES