Bortoleto on his key learnings in F1, taking inspiration from Schumacher and looking ahead to an ‘insane’ home race

One year ago, Kick Sauber confirmed the signing of Gabriel Bortoleto. At that point the young Brazilian was a Formula 3 champion, was challenging for the Formula 2 title and had just spent the 2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend inside the F1 paddock in his role as a McLaren academy driver.

Fast forward 12 months and much has changed. The 21-year-old bagged that F2 championship – matching the likes of Oscar Piastri by securing back-to-back F3 and F2 titles – and has already showcased his immense potential as he approaches his first home Grand Prix as an F1 racer.

His Sauber team boss Jonathan Wheatley has been unequivocal in his praise. “The real deal” was how he described Bortoleto, and Wheatley has worked with his fair share of F1 stars.

There have also been some eye-catching results along the way. A sixth-place finish in Hungary is the pick of the bunch, while there were two P8s in Austria and Monza. After three races outside the top 10 he returned to the points at the Mexico City Grand Prix last time out.

“It was a great achievement in my career to be joining Formula 1,” says Bortoleto when I ask him if he can believe it has almost been a year since he was confirmed as a Sauber driver.

“It has been my dream since I started racing and obviously, almost a year now, it feels amazing.

“It has been a very long season this year, so far. A lot of races, a lot of things to learn from my side and a lot of time spent as well with the team. But, yeah, it feels amazing.”

‘I feel like I'm much more comfortable now going into the weekends'

With the Sao Paulo Grand Prix marking Round 21 of 24, Bortoleto is closing in on the end of his rookie season in motorsport’s top echelon. Undoubtedly there has been much to learn along the way.

“I mean, the amount of media commitments we have in Formula 1 – it’s unreal, it's so many things!” he laughs.

“That's definitely one of the things that surprised me the most. You still need to keep your energy level up and you have so many things to attend during the week and so many meetings as well.

“It becomes a much more professional thing, and you need to adapt.”

Adapting is pivotal for anyone making their first steps in F1, where the off-track commitments are almost as fast-paced as racing around a circuit. But Bortoleto couldn’t have better mentors around him.

In four-time World Champion Max Verstappen – the pair are close and sim race together – and two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso – Bortoleto is part of his driver management agency – the Brazilian has two modern day greats to learn from.

“When they're off track, they do what they like at home, relax, and I think they recover their energy and they come to a new weekend ready for the next race,” he explains, singling out the pair’s ability to manage their time when so much is required of an F1 driver.

“I've learnt from Fernando and Max, watching them and how they behave off track and everything.”

He continues: “I think there's always work to do [for me]. I still feel like I need to do a step in that sense.

“But I feel like I'm much more comfortable now going into the weekends, much more relaxed with my energy levels arriving on Sunday – still quite high and able to perform the best way I want – while, maybe at the beginning of the season, I felt like I was getting a bit more exhausted before we even started [practice] because I was putting too much energy on Thursdays, and on Wednesdays.

“It could be so easy just to feel like you've got to go all in to prove yourself. But sometimes it's [about] less and sometimes doing a bit less.

“It's still putting a lot of effort in things and studying and doing; I still believe I do a lot. But [I do] a bit less than what I was doing at the beginning of the season in some senses – but with more quality, with more understanding of things.”

‘F1 is my priority’

Bortoleto has already shown himself to be a passionately hard worker, revealing on F1’s Beyond The Grid podcast that he often gets straight onto his home simulator after a Grand Prix on Sunday. “It’s when you have everything fresh in your mind,” he told host Tom Clarkson, who was trying to get his head around the driver getting back behind the (virtual) wheel straight after a race.

“That's what I love about my private life,” he tells me when I ask about that passion for the sim. “It's about going home and doing my sim, spending time with my friends, playing and driving on other cars and testing with F1.

“I think this is how I recharge my energy. I think that's what I actually like to spend a lot of time doing, that I feel like the days pass and I've done what I loved from the beginning of the day to the end of the day.

“I feel like this is a way of me disconnecting a bit from F1 weekends and still doing something I love but being able to recharge.”

Finding that balance is one of the key factors for Bortoleto in helping him perform to the best of his ability – and there is no denying the importance he puts on his loved ones around him as part of that.

“Obviously F1 is my priority, it's my sport,” he adds. “It's what I'm committed to in my life. “I think about it every single second of my day. I'm doing things related to it, but my private life is also very important for me. Spending time with family, my girlfriend, my friends, doing things I love.

“It's also a priority in my life and I manage to balance both things very well.”

‘They always knew what I was capable of’

Sauber went into 2025 off the back of a challenging 2024, Zhou Guanyu landing the squad’s only points score with the four he collected at the Qatar Grand Prix – that year’s penultimate race.

As a result, even with the team’s all-new line-up of Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg, expectations for 2025 were low, with many assuming the squad would focus on 2026 – when they become Audi’s works team – as new F1 regulations come into force.

While that focus on 2026 has been present, as it has to be for the entire grid, Sauber did not stand still this season. They may sit ninth in the heavily congested Teams’ Championship, but their haul of 60 points is 56 more than last year already. What’s more, they are only 12 points behind sixth-placed Racing Bulls.

On an individual level, that has allowed Sauber’s drivers to star on the track and showcase their talent on a more regular basis – Hulkenberg’s British Grand Prix podium a prime example, while Bortoleto’s own points-scoring exploits (in Austria, Hungary and Italy in particular) have only helped to enhance his reputation and the excitement there is around the 21-year-old.

“It's just unreal what we have been able to do since we started the season,” Bortoleto says, reflecting on the team’s improvements. “You know, [we were on the] back foot and the car was not behaving as we expected. Turning things around and being able to be fighting for points constantly now has been a big thing for us.

“I'm so happy. I'm glad for the team because I see how much hard work they put into things, and how much time is spent, and we deserve some good results.”

Does that improved performance give him a sense of pride, I ask, given he’s able to showcase his talent?

“Yes, obviously it's always nice that people know what you're capable of,” he responds. “But I believe, at the same time, I never felt inside the team any pressure or anything to show something. They always knew what I was capable of, and they trusted me.

“But obviously I put this pressure myself, I wanted to deliver for the team because that's why I'm here, I need to deliver results. I think it was very good from their side, and from my side, and a combination of things that [meant] we're able to reach the level we are now.”

Learnings from F2 and F3, and taking inspiration from Schumacher

Perhaps one of the key reasons we are seeing Bortoleto take to F1 like a duck to water is that he’s already battle-hardened, having fought for – and won – both the F3 and F2 titles at the first time of asking.

“So much,” he says, when I ask how much he’s learned from those seasons fighting at the front.

“I've been fighting for titles for two years in a row and that's the biggest pressure you can feel – when you know you have only one year to perform in Formula 2 and in Formula 3, and if you don't perform, maybe you're not in the grid next year in Formula 1 or in Formula 2.

“You never know what can happen in your life, so you need to deliver the results as soon as possible and I knew that was the situation. I think that pressure I felt in F2 and F3 prepared me for my season.”

It’s a different type of pressure now for Bortoleto. He may not be a championship contender, as he was for the previous two years of his racing career, but his efforts are now geared towards helping Sauber enter their new era.

Patience will be key, as the squad hold lofty ambitions to one day fight for titles, but for that, Bortoleto is taking inspiration from a Netflix documentary on one of the sport’s true greats.

“Well, it's definitely something I've been learning,” he says when I ask about adjusting from fighting at the very front to what he is doing now.

“Obviously there's still the feeling of not fighting for wins; it's a topic for me that I keep fighting because I truly believe I have the potential to do that. I just need maybe the opportunity to achieve that. Hopefully we will do soon.

“We are working for that, but it's part of a process. To be honest, yesterday I watched again Schumacher's Netflix series – I’ve watched [it] already many times – but I like to re-watch things sometimes and you see his progress with Ferrari when he joined and, everything he developed with the team and then winning the championship.

“I feel like it's a bit of an inspiration in that sense for me to join Audi and have the project very clear ahead of me. I want to win titles with them one day and I'm going to work for that every single day and night I can.”

Bortoleto undoubtedly sees his future with the Audi project and, to him, the squad has already become more than an F1 team.

“I know a lot of environments in teams in Formula 1 and, not that I've been part of them, but that I hear from and I'm lucky – I’m a lucky guy,” he says. “I have a team that supports me, I have people around me that have very good energy and that I really enjoy working with. I really think I couldn't be in a better place for my first year and for my future as well.”

‘It will be insane man’

Next up on the F1 calendar? Sao Paulo. It’s always a special weekend but for Bortoleto it will mark his first home race as an F1 driver.

Brazil’s history in F1 needs no introduction. The country has produced three F1 World Champions – with eight titles between them – but they have had no one to cheer following the retirement of Felipe Massa after the 2017 season. When Bortoleto joined Sauber, he ended that absence of Brazilian drivers on the grid.

“It will be insane man, Brazilian people are for me the best,” Bortoleto tells me when I ask if he’s begun to think about racing at Interlagos in F1.

“Obviously it's my country so I always say this, because I feel like this. I connect to them, I'm connected to my country, I'm connected to my people, they are the same as I am.

“I really want to go race in Brazil, and feel the atmosphere there, and be with the fans and everyone, definitely.”

For a racer who has already spoken about the importance of recharging, how does Bortoleto plan to approach the weekend? After all, Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli was refreshingly honest about not managing his first home Grand Prix weekend at Imola in the best way possible.

“Well, I'm going to give my best,” Bortoleto says. “Obviously [the fans] are going to expect a lot of things and I don't ask them for less than this. They are fans, they want to see me winning and doing well so they are going to expect always high things about me.

“It means that they believe that I can achieve this; if they didn't expect anything from me, it's because they don't think I'm able to achieve this so I'm fine with it. I'm going to give my best and I will deliver the job I can deliver in that weekend.”

And what about following in the footsteps of one of Brazil – and F1’s – greatest ever drivers? Bortoleto idolises three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna, both hail from Sao Paulo and the 21-year-old wears his late hero’s helmet colours. Even from that perspective, this upcoming weekend will be a special moment for the rookie.

“Senna is my biggest idol, the guy I grew up hearing about and, again, I think hopefully one day, I can achieve a little bit of what that guy did for the sport and for Brazil and everyone,” Bortoleto explains.

“He's an idol even after so many years since he passed away, still inspiring people. That's, I think, a goal in my life as well, to be able to be successful in Formula 1 but at the same time make something big for my country.”