Gabriel Bortoleto cut a measured figure after his 2026 F1 Monaco GP ended before it had truly begun. A pre-race technical failure in the pit lane left the Audi driver starting from the very back of the grid.
The Brazilian was preparing for his practice start when disaster struck.
“The car just switched off when I was about to do my practice start, I just left the pits,” he said. When asked about the cause, the team had little to offer. “From the red flag I asked the team if they had any idea what happened. We don’t know yet actually,” he admitted.
As a result, the 21-year-old was forced to start from last – a painful setback after qualifying had already left him in P16 following a Q1 crash.
“Unfortunately I couldn’t start from P16, that’s where my bad qualifying put me from yesterday [Saturday]. I had to start last,” he said.
Bortoleto’s pace at 2026 F1 Monaco GP stood out
Starting from the very back on a circuit notorious for making overtaking nearly impossible, Bortoleto found himself boxed in almost immediately. An early stop saw him end up behind Bottas before the Finn retired. Then he caught Stroll and was stuck again.
“I had to start last and then I got stuck behind Cadillac, got stuck behind one of the Aston Martins. And at some point, I was just lifting and having a gap and pushing to get my own pace. I had a little bit of un in that sense. But, yeah, just impossible to overtake in this track,” he said.
Nevertheless, Gabriel Bortoleto was determined to separate the result from the underlying performance. When McLaren’s Oscar Piastri came through to lap him, Bortoleto made way and immediately demonstrated what the Audi was capable of.
“When I got the blue flag from Piastri, at some point I gave him a gap of three seconds and I set my own pace. I caught him with the same tyre life, I pulled the gap from the car behind, that was [Pierre] Gasly,” he explained. “We were all in the same tyre life. It’s just that I was not realistically in that position.”
Audi’s pace to progress in 2026
That kind of pace was all the more impressive given that Bortoleto had not anticipated a strong weekend in Monaco. The Audi has well-documented drivability issues, and the streets of Monte Carlo – with their low-speed corners and heavy reliance on first gear – concerned the Brazilian ahead of the event.
When asked whether the lack of importance on the engine side around Monaco had been behind the car’s strong showing, Bortoleto was unequivocal.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” he said. “I need to be honest with you, I thought this weekend was not going to be the best for us, because we still suffer with drivability problems. So a track with very low speed like this, where you need to put a lot of first gears, I thought it was going to be tough.”
However, the team arrived with meaningful changes. The steps they had made in drivability made a tangible difference throughout the weekend. This was seen clearly.
In fact, in practice, Audi looked to be strongest of the midfield teams before it went south in qualifying.
“The positive is that we had an amazing pace. In the entire [Free Practice Sessions] – FP1, [FP]2, [FP]3 – we were inside the top 10.” It was a sign that the development work was beginning to pay off.
“It ended up we did some steps in drivability, it was much better. And it was a good weekend, in the sense of pace. Just didn’t maximise the result we could,” he said.
Ultimately, Bortoleto kept his assessment of the F1 Monaco GP measured and direct. “The negative, let’s put it this way, is that we didn’t score points.”
Despite the frustration, he remained firmly optimistic about the trajectory of the team’s development.
“I think we are going in the right direction. I think we should see this with a positive. Even if the result today was not the greatest, I think we are going in the right way.”
For Audi, a weekend without points still carried genuine encouragement. The pace and the progress was real. And their driver fully believed in the project of development as 2026 continues.
