Gabriel Bortoleto has established himself as a F1 rookie to keep an eye on this year. The Sauber driver has shown incredible consistency and determination in the first half of his debut Formula 1 season. While the young talent is one of four rookies on the grid at present, his recent performances in both qualifying and races have proved to be outstanding.
Turning the season around
The Sauber team experienced their fair share of hardships at the beginning of the season. Excluding the very first race in Australia, the team had to go without points until the Spanish GP, where Nico Hülkenberg once again secured solid points for the team. A big update in Barcelona turned their season around.
Bortoleto’s first F1 points came later in Austria where he finished with a strong P8 after a dramatic race. The rookie saw the top ten again weeks later in Belgium, before achieving his best result yet in Hungary. The Brazilian stormed to a brilliant P6 around the Hungaroring, and secured another 8 points for the team.
Ahead of the Hungarian GP, the former F2 champion praised the Sauber team for the turnaround they experienced recently. The Brazilian driver was asked if the season has gone according to expectations in which he responded:
“We started in a very difficult way, we had a car that was probably the worst car on the grid. We were really struggling all the races to go out of Q1, and in the race pace we were very bad, and then we improved a lot, we brought some very good upgrades, and now I think we are in a position that we are able to score points.
“Obviously, it’s always super tight, and it’s tough to score points, but at least we are fighting for it. I would say we improved a lot through the season so far, and the team has done an amazing job on that because it’s not easy to turn things around like we have done.”
Consistency during the first half of the season
While Bortoleto had proved himself to be consistent, the C45 F1 car has not. However, after Sauber brought upgrades in Barcelona, their season turned brighter. Since Spain, Sauber have secured points every race, making it six consecutive point finishes for the team. The upgrades have massively improved their season.
When asked about how much more consistent the car is in qualifying now compared to the start of the year, Bortoleto explained the difference stating:
“Quite a bit more, I would say. I think the car, you can expect more things from it. Still, it’s not a car that is easy to handle, and it’s qualifying, and you still need to fight a lot with it. But, it’s normal, you’re racing, you are driving a Formula 1 car, but it’s definitely a bigger step. Now we are able to replicate laps, and to be consistent in the race with the race pace.”
He continued on to be asked if the C45 is a better race car than qualifying car. The rookie expressed uncertainty on if that was truly the case. As Liam Lawson shower in Austria and at Spa, Racing Bulls are good at managing tyre degradation.
“I’m not sure about that. For example, in Spa, I felt like I put the car twice in Q3, and in Sprint quali, I outqualified some of the Racing Bulls. Then in the race, they were clearly faster. In Quali, for the main quali, I didn’t have the new set of softs for Q3 because I used it all in Q1 and Q2, but I went to Q3 and I really felt that I could have, if I had a new set of softs, maybe a P8, P7 was not impossible looking at the lap time of other people, but I feel like in the race, it was not a reachable position. I really felt like P9 was everything we could achieve in that moment. I would say it’s quite fair and compared now.”
While the rookie hoped for better in Spa, he crafted an amazing performance the next time out in Hungary. It is clear that Bortoleto has been pushing the car the best of its ability.
