Audi Revolut F1 Team brought home a point from the inaugural race at the Madring, as Nico Hulkenberg crowned a strong team performance with P10 in the Spanish Grand Prix.

On a track on which overtakes proved nigh-impossible, it was teamwork, strategy and superbly executed pit stops that helped Nico jump his rivals over the 57-lap race and claim the final points-paying position.

On the other side of the garage, Gabriel Bortoleto ran a strong race, going long on his starting hard tyre in the hope of making strategic gains later: with no late Safety Cars or red flags, however, he could not materialise his gains and finished his race in 13th place.

The point gained brings the team’s total to 17 – only four shy of Haas in seventh place in the championship.

Earlier in the day, Audi Driver Development Programme’s Freddie Slater brought his Formula 3 season to a close: following a run of eight podiums in eight rounds, the Brit narrowly missed on an outstanding rookie season championship.

Despite the disappointment, the racecraft, speed and maturity displayed in his maiden season placed him as one of the standout performers of the year across all junior formulas.

Allan McNish, Racing Director: “Overall, we’re happy to have gained a point. It was always going to be a difficult race from a strategy point of view, with overtaking being very difficult and it looking strongly like a one-stop race.

We dropped positions again at the start, which is an area we know is one of our weaknesses, but from there I was very pleased with how we worked as a team.

“We played a real team game today. Nico switched from the soft onto the hard tyre, while we ran an alternative strategy with Gabi which covered pretty much every scenario. Gabi did a great job to run very long on the hard, with the hope that a Safety Car,

Virtual Safety Car or red flag later in the race could give him a significant tyre advantage, or a free stop, and propel him back into the points. On the other side, Nico was very strong on both the soft and the hard and came very close to getting ahead of Lindblad at the end.

“Ultimately, I have to say the point today was delivered by the team in the pits. Nico came in behind Ocon and went out ahead of him after a fantastically quick stop, and the team repeated that performance when Gabi came in. It was a very good team effort, strategically, in the pits and from both drivers. It’s another point for us, and now we look forward to Baku.”