{"id":9460,"date":"2026-02-16T19:46:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/9460\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T19:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:46:18","slug":"swiss-driver-gets-surprise-audi-f1-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/9460\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss driver gets surprise Audi F1 call up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/audi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Audi<\/a> have added former F2 driver Ralf Boschung to its ranks as it prepares to tackle its debut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a> season in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The German marque is all set to enter the F1 championship as a works team for the first-time ever in its current avatar, this season. <\/p>\n<p>After completing a takeover from Peter Sauber, the former Swiss outfit was completely rebranded in anticipation of the 2026 regulations reset. <\/p>\n<p>The Mattia Binotto-led project has retained its driver line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto but has made swift additions to its overarching squad in the meanwhile.<\/p>\n<p>After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2026\/01\/26\/audi-names-first-member-of-f1-development-programme\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signing up Freddie Slater to its newly-established young driver programme<\/a>, Audi has given a shot, albeit an unexpected one, to another feeder series driver in the shape of Boschung. <\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old Swiss racing driver drove in F2 for seven years, earning his highest finish (10th) in the standings in 2021. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Ralph-Boschung-Audi-F1-1024x576.webp.webp\" alt=\"Ralph Boschung has been given a role at Audi\" class=\"wp-image-238160\"  \/>Ralph Boschung has been given a role at Audi<\/p>\n<p>He bowed out of competitive single-seater racing for good, however, at the end of the 2023 F2 campaign \u2013 recording his only win in the series for Campos Racing.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2024, Boschung was employed as a Simulator Driver for Stake Sauber. Now, he takes a step up to Development Driver with Audi. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew development driver \u2013 building the future with us,\u201d an Audi statement read. \u201cWe are proud to welcome Swiss driver Ralph Boschung as our development driver. Congratulations on taking the next step with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boschung himself was chuffed at getting the opportunity to closely work with the iconic German marque as he took to his X (formerly Twitter) handle to retweet and leave an inspirational message on Audi\u2019s official announcement. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNever Give Up!,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-8bbc7f4b1da580453f38735e6684beb1\">READ MORE \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2026\/02\/12\/gabriel-bortoleto-labels-2026-f1-cars-a-mess\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gabriel Bortoleto labels 2026 F1 cars \u2018a mess\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audi have added former F2 driver Ralf Boschung to its ranks as it prepares to tackle its debut&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7426,7427,2613,41,17],"class_list":["post-9460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-audi","tag-boschung","tag-f1","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}