Ahead of the Las Vegas GP, Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto reflected on one of “the toughest weekends” of the season after crashing twice during the F1 São Paulo GP weekend.
Bortoleto experienced a tough weekend at home as the young Brazilian crashed in the sprint race, preventing him from partaking in Qualifying.
Starting from P18 on the grid, thanks to the pit lane start of Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen, Bortoleto was looking to make up positions in the race. His efforts came to an early stop on the opening lap, where he had to retire following another crash.
“Probably the toughest weekend of the year for me,” Bortoleto summarised the São Paulo GP weekend.
The Sprint Race incident
Despite the crashes, Bortoleto felt he had “very strong” pace and looked to build on it throughout the session. Overall, the Brazilian felt comfortable and confident up until the crash during the sprint race.
“I think the speed was very strong in FP1, you know, straight away, new track for me, and we were very competitive.
“I think in Sprint Quali as well, we were there fighting for Q3, just very fine margins, but I felt very comfortable with the car that I was building up as well. Like with my speed, I was very confident, and then we did a sprint race, it was going very well until the moment of the crash.”
The Brazilian rookie crashed on the final lap of the Sprint while attempting to exit Alex Albon’s slipstream. As he entered Turn 1, he collided with the inside wall, was then thrown back across the track, and ultimately ended up against the barriers.
Recalling the events that led to the crash in the Sprint Race, Bortoleto believes multiple factors played a role.
“I think I’ve done some positions, overtook Isack [Hadjar], was fighting with Alex [Albon], the pace was feeling good, and then obviously I tried in the first try, it worked, but then he overtook me back in four, and then I tried again.
“I just wanted to, you know, try some overtakes and fight a bit.
“Obviously, it didn’t work out for some reason. It was a mixture of things that made the crash happen.
“Then the weekend gets very compromised after such a big crash. We couldn’t rebuild the car for Qualy, even if the team did an amazing job trying to, because we almost put it on track.”
Incident with Stroll on Lap1 of the São Paulo GP
Unable to participate in Qualifying, Bortoleto had to start the São Paulo GP from the back of the grid. At lights out, the Sauber Driver gained some positions before a battle for position with Lance Stroll ended in the barriers again.
“After that, obviously starting last in the race, I managed to overtake two cars up to T10, where I had the contact with Stroll.
“I committed to the outside there, we were side by side, and it just opened up a bit of the line. I don’t know if he saw that I was there or not, but he touched my front wing and I was in the wall.”
Lessons learned from tough outing at the São Paulo GP
After what Bortoleto describes as “the toughest weekend of the year”, he feels there are lessons to be learned about taking risks, as a crash could have much higher costs than a missed Qualifying session.
While Bortoleto might think twice about taking a risky move in the future, he will not change his general approach to driving, which has worked well for him all season and yielded strong results.
“There are a lot of lessons to take there, about risk. When to risk, when to not risk. I think, you know, the crash in sprints.
“Okay, I was trying to make overtakes and everything, but was it the right moment to try that? Just before a quali, for example. Stuff like this, but you know, that’s learning.
“Obviously, it was a big crash, so it’s never good, even if I feel great and I had no injuries at all, I was very lucky. But, you know, in an incident like that, you can get hurt, and you can maybe not even race during that weekend or in the future weekends.
“So, in my case, I was very lucky, but things could have been much worse as well.
“I’m not going to change the way I’m driving. I think it has been working the whole year very well. I think we had so far a solid year, with great results, ups and downs, like a first season should be, I believe.
“But it’s just a shame that we can happen in my home Grand Prix, you know. But for sure, it will make me stronger, probably.”
Brazilian GP weekend hurt, after a nearly accident-free first season
The disappointing result in the Brazilian GP, “definitely hurt,” says Bortoleto, who was trying to deliver a strong result in front of his home crowd. While the São Paulo GP might be considered one of the worst weekends of the year, Bortoleto believes that with 24 races per season, there ought to be some challenging races.
His first outing might not have ended with the result he had hoped for, but with a potentially long career ahead of him, Bortoleto will have plenty of chances to deliver a strong result at home.
“Yeah, I mean, it definitely hurt, because, again, it was my home Grand Prix, so for me it was such a special weekend that I wanted to deliver a good result in front of my country.
“We do 24 races a year, and we had other difficult races as well, maybe not as Brazil, because there were two crashes, let’s say, and I basically didn’t crash the whole year, so for me it was a bit of a shock to do that in Brazil.
“But, you know, at the same time, it’s learning, and I will have many possibilities to race in Brazil, and I don’t need to win or be in my best performance ever in my first try there.
“At the end of the day, it’s special because it’s a home race, but it’s just one more Grand Prix, and you don’t score more points because you are in Brazil. You score the same amount as other races.”
Home GP commitments not to blame for difficult São Paulo GP weekend
Racing at home can come with many distractions and a heavier media schedule ahead of the GP weekend. However, Bortoleto feels that both Sauber and his personal team have struck the right balance for this year’s São Paulo GP.
The Sauber driver does not believe that the increased number of commitments had any part in how the weekend played out for him, and that it could have happened anywhere.
“I think the weekend was going very well in that sense. I think all the media commitments we have done, all the events, it was very well managed from the team, from my personal team as well. We have done a lot, but necessary, but not too much.
“It was a good combination of things, you know. And I felt that I had my energy levels in a very good place for FP1 to start the weekend. I didn’t feel tired, I didn’t feel like this weekend looks like it’s already three weekends that I have been here.
“It felt like new, and I was happy for that, because I really felt like we did a good job on organizing these things. But yeah, I feel like it’s a learning. I don’t think what happened there was because it was Brazil.
“I think it was a bit of a coincidence, because it was an incident that happened. But it could have happened in any track, you know. If I tried to make a move like this in Las Vegas, and I hit a wet patch in the track, I’m going to crash the same way.”
