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Every driver with Bortoleto's CV succeeded so far: Can the rookie follow?
For the first time since Felipe Massa, a Brazilian driver will be on the grid in Formula 1. After a steady track record in feeder series, he will join Sauber, before the Swiss team will complete their transition to become Audi the next season. The Brazilian's CV already speaks for itself, and now, it is in his hands to achieve the same results as his predecessors.
Why Bortoleto's future looks bright
While there is not a single way to get to Formula 1, there is a clearly established one: Win titles against a strong field in F3 and F2 to earn promotion. It's true that a promotion also depends on the team's position in terms of driver line-ups, but in the recent past, no driver has been overlooked with the same record.
Gabriel Bortoleto won the title in his debut year in Formula 3 with Trident. He immediately took control in his hands, winning the first two feature races of the season, and after finishing on the podium on several occiasions, he could claim the championship ahead of Zak O'Sullivan and Paul Aron.
At the end of 2023, he joined the McLaren Driver Development Programme, and got promoted to F2, where he also won the title after a final feature race decider against now Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar in Abu Dhabi for Invicta Racing.
On the 2025 grid, three others have a similar CV to Bortoleto's. George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri. Both Leclerc and Russell won the first championship in F3's predecessor, GP3, and then joined a backmarker team at the time, Sauber and Williams. They both now have seats at frontrunner teams.
Piastri himself is a bit of an outlier. First, he had to wait a season on the sidelines before joining McLaren in 2023. Moreover, he did not have to make a transfer to join a top team, as the Woking-based side could considerably improve after he became Lando Norris' teammates. So far, the Australian has two victories to his name.
Lack of private testing for Bortoleto ahead of rookie year
Over the course of the week, the Brazilian talent completed his first official F1 event at pre-season testing in Bahrain. Now, it is in his hands to make a lasting impression as well in the competition.
After completing all of his runs, the Sauber driver talked about the lack of private testing in general outside of the three days in Sakhir: "Well, definitely not enough testing. But we need to work with that. And I mean, in my, I've said this before in previous interviews as well, in F3 and F2, especially in F2, I haven't done any private testing before jumping to Bahrain pre-season test."
"It's something I got used to a bit, because obviously the private testing are very expensive things to afford. Sauber last year, they didn't have a TPC car that we could run when it was still legal to do more than a thousand kilometres per driver. When we got the TPC car, this new rule came up, that I think it's a rule that is not so good for the rookies."
He concluded: "But we work with that and no complaints. Just now we take the time we need to develop. And for sure, there will be a lot of it during the season."
This article was written in collaboration with Sandy van Wijngaarden
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