Gabriel Bortoleto, 20, has new goals for his first season at F1. After reaching his best position in the category, with sixth place in the Hungary GP, on Sunday (3), Paulista wants to stay in the top ten in the ten races left in the 2025 World Cup.
This is a significant change of perspective for the pilot who, just over three months ago, in the days before their debut in the main category of motorsport, said it was very difficult to take his car to the scoring zone.
In fact, it was.
Sauber had the worst single season of last season and only scored once in 2024, in the penultimate GP of the year, when Chinese Guanyu Zhou won the eighth place in Bahrein – inn this helped the first Asian rider to stay on the grid for the following season.
This year, Nico Hülkenberg’s seventh place at the opening of the World Cup in Australia renewed the team’s mood. But it was only from the Spain GP, in the ninth stage of the championship, when green cars went through significant evolutions, which both Bortoleto and Hülkenberg began to pursue more ambitious goals, such as making Sauber the fifth grid team – only behind the powerful McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.
“If we had not improved the car at the beginning of the year, we would not add any points,” said Bortoleto after the race at the Hungarian circuit. “It’s not that we are easily there [entre os dez primeiros]it is difficult. It is not easy for the Nico. He’s an extremely fast guy, but every detail, every thousandth of seconds makes a difference in this platoon. “
The Swiss team has scored in the last six races and currently occupies the seventh position of the 51 -point builders – a less than Aston Martin. In fifth position, Williams added 70 here.
With 14 points, Bortoleto contributed 27% of the score obtained by his team. It may seem little, but it is good to remember that your teammate is much more experienced. Hülkenberg has been at F1 since 2010, with over 250 races in the history, and the Brazilian has played only 14 races so far.
Gabriel’s performance has been applauded inside and out of Sauber. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso compliments the rookie after the Hungary GP.
For the two -time champion (2005 and 2006), who has also been Bortoleto entrepreneur since 2022, he is the “best newcomer of the new generation” and had proven it by winning the F2 title in 2024 in his debut year. Before, in 2023, he was also champion of the F3. F3 and F2 act as F1 access categories.
“The truth is that he always strengths, does not make mistakes, is always pressing you. He is the best newcomer of this generation, I always say that. He showed that last year with equal cars. I think if it was English or something and ended sixth with a Sauber, it would be on the cover of all newspapers, because what it does is something exceptional,” said Alonso.
The European press rather highlighted the result of the Sauber pilot. Spain’s brand, for example, quoted the novice’s consistency of the season: “He had the worst car earlier this year and the worst possible companion, a hard bone like Hülkenberg, but far from discouraging, is rich in consistency and already adds 14 points, four more than more than [Yuki] Tsunoda with a Red Bull “.
The Brazilian himself acknowledges that he is surprised by his performance – this 2017 Brazil did not have a pilot in the top 6 of a race; The last one had been Felipe Massa. “I have surprised people and surprised me too, because thinking I would reach the last stage before summer holidays and be sixth … I don’t know if I believed it,” said Bortoleto.
Before playing the last ten stages of the year, Paulista will now start the F1 holiday period. In the next two weeks, the teams will have their factories closed. The works only come back shortly before the next stage, on August 31, in the Netherlands.
“I’m going to travel with my family, here in Europe, for a week, and then I go back to Brazil. I will see my grandparents, my aunt, my nephews, all the world that is there. Eating feijoada, barbecue, enjoying, doing everything in Brazil, because now it’s time to rest.”
