Gabriel Bortoleto continued to emulate Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Oscar Piastri in 2024, following up his rookie Formula 3 title with becoming Formula 2 champion at the first attempt.
The target was to quickly adapt to F2’s new Dallara, and the Brazilian suffered a slow start to the year with reliability woes in Jeddah and getting tangled with Pepe Marti in Australia, before a run of 22 races with only two non-scores catapulted him to the summit, earning him a 2025 F1 seat with Sauber.
In a year of 18 different race winners, Bortoleto secured feature race victories at the Red Bull Ring and Monza.
Bortoleto’s last-to-first Monza heroics
Following the Hungarian sprint race, Isack Hadjar looked to have one hand firmly on the championship trophy, holding a significant points lead over the chasing pack. But a run of seven races with only one points score – a victory in the Belgian feature race – left the door slightly, well, ajar.
Bortoleto was among those taking advantage of this slump, but a crash in qualifying at Monza threatened to undo all of his good work. However, the Invicta driver was not going to let his back-of-the-grid starting position get him down, as he recovered to eighth in the sprint race to secure half a point – having finished with the exact same race time as Dennis Hauger.
With the longer feature race format, there were tentative suggestions behind closed doors that a podium could even be possible in the Sunday competition.
Opting to remain on the regular strategy rather than take a gamble, Bortoleto tore through the backmarkers early on then stayed out a lap longer than the leaders before pitting. With the safety car coming out due to a collision involving drivers exiting the pits, the Brazilian was gifted a cheap stop, which vaulted him to the front.
Recalling his stunning last-to-first victory, he told Autosport: “That race was a redemption weekend, a very impressive one for me. We had a very bad quali, where I made a big mistake and spun on the first push. We knew we were very fast and had good pace from FP and then we just kept the heads up; did a great sprint race overtaking cars in 20 laps, then the Sunday was mega.
“I managed to extend the first stint on the option set of tyres and we were absolutely flying. Then we had the pitstop at great timing and everything came back on track. We overtook some more guys, got to the lead, and from there on I did quali lap after quali lap. Even if it was not needed, I just kept pushing so much.
“I finished ahead of P2 by about 10 seconds, so it was probably the best race of my life. Performance-wise, pace-wise, everything was just great.”
