‘Doing everything right’: Bortoleto’s no-fuss rookie year sets the tone for Audi’s F1 step
Gabriel Bortoleto didn’t arrive in Formula 1 with fireworks. He arrived with answers. And inside Sauber, that’s counted for plenty.
After a season of quietly effective graft in a car that rarely let him show off, the 2024 Formula 2 champion has earned full marks from Sauber team boss Jonathan Wheatley, who says the Brazilian is “doing everything right” as he beds in ahead of the outfit’s next chapter under Audi.
Bortoleto’s step up in 2025 was never going to be straightforward. Sauber spent the first half of the year on the back foot, and—predictably—Nico Hülkenberg chalked up the bigger headline results as the team ended on 70 points. But Bortoleto still found ways to cut through the noise. Nineteen points on debut, a best of sixth in Hungary, and a 12-12 tie with Hülkenberg across Grand Prix qualifying—all of it told a story of a rookie who learns fast and doesn’t spook easily.
“There was a point where I was ahead of him every quali,” Bortoleto said in Abu Dhabi, reflecting on the back-and-forth with a driver long regarded as one of the grid’s one-lap benchmarks. “Then he started out-qualifying me as well. It’s so tight. It’s all about confidence in the car. Matching a guy like him, I’m proud of that—and I’ve learned a lot from him too.”
If the Saturdays were encouraging, the bigger shift happened behind the garage doors. Bortoleto talked at length about the technical immersion that shaped his rookie year—what to ask for, how to translate feel into fixes, and where to push.
“Honestly, after the postseason test last year I didn’t know what I wanted from the car,” he admitted. “This season, with the engineers, the studying, all of it, the amount I’ve learned has been huge.”
Wheatley’s assessment mirrors that growth curve. The Sauber chief praised not just the lap time, but the way Bortoleto has set up his working world, describing a driver “on schedule” with the right habits for the long haul.
“He’s building a team around him. He’s understanding the car. He’s tempering frustration,” Wheatley said. “You hear his radio messages—he gets that the team’s on a journey. If you look at his rookie season, it’s a pretty outstanding season.”
That composure will matter even more now. Sauber is about to become Audi’s full factory operation as the sport flips to new regulations, and rookies don’t stay rookies for long in a manufacturer project. Bortoleto knows the job gets bigger in year two, even if he isn’t pretending to be the finished product.
“It was obviously a rookie season,” he said. “I’ll still have a lot to learn next year—it’s only my second year in Formula 1. With the brand Audi coming, there’ll be more responsibility. It’s the start of a project and a new generation of cars, so there’ll be pressure to help develop a good car and power unit to fight for a world title one day.”
That’s the horizon. The here-and-now is a driver who’s already shown he can hold his end of the rope on Saturdays, pick up points when the window opens, and work the details the rest of the week. In a midfield that punished mistakes in 2025, Bortoleto kept his head down and made incremental gains. If Audi’s first task is to lay strong foundations, they’ve got one in the cockpit.
No grandstanding, no bluster—just a rookie who’s figured out how to move the needle. If he keeps doing everything right, as Wheatley put it, he won’t be a rookie for long in any sense that matters.
