Brazilian 20-year-old Gabriel Bortoleto forms half of Sauber’s line-up for the 2025 season, partnering up with veteran Nico Hulkenberg at the Swiss team. He came out on top in the search for Sauber, soon to be Audi’s, last remaining seat having made an impression after taking back-to-back F3 and F2 championship victories in his rookie season.
Bortoleto made his single-seater debut in 2020 in Italian F4, before moving to Formula Regional Europe in 2021. He finished 15th that year, and sixth in 2022, before making the step up to F3 with Trident in 2023.
His rookie season in the series saw him take two victories and six podiums, which was enough for him to secure the title, 45 points ahead of second-placed Zak O’Sullivan. He then signed for the McLaren driver development programme.
In 2024, Bortoleto stepped up into Formula 2 with Invicta Racing, and he became embroiled in a title battle with Isack Hadjar. Despite only taking two victories that year, one of those was a last-to-first drive in Monza, which impressed many.
The championship fight came down to the final race of the season, but Hadjar stalled on the grid. Bortoleto finished second, which was enough to become the 2024 F2 champion.
He was announced as a Sauber F1 driver in November 2024, just after Bortoleto’s home race in Brazil, having been released from the McLaren driver development programme to pick up his F1 drive.
2025 – Sauber
19th – 19 points
Bortoleto made his F1 debut in 2025, but it was a debut to forget as he crashed out of the wet Australian Grand Prix. Finding his feet in a Sauber which lacked outright pace relative to its midfield rivals, the first Brazilian F1 driver in eight years scored his first points with eighth in Austria, which started a mini purple patch, picking up further points finishes in three of the next five rounds.
A hard-working, analytical driver with a strong work ethic that impressed his Sauber squad, Bortoleto picked up his final point of the season with 10th in Mexico, but his season ended on a sour note with two crashes at his home round in Sao Paulo followed by another crash at the start of the Las Vegas GP, which earned him a penalty for the following round in Qatar.
