In his rookie F2 season, Gabriel Bortoleto managed to transform a poor season start into a championship win by the end of the year
Gabriel Bortoleto’s Journey to the F2 Title
In Abu Dhabi, when the checked flag was waved for the last race of the year, a new champion was crowned. His name is Gabriel Bortoleto, a 20-year-old boy from São Paulo who has just achieved one of his dreams.
As he exited the car, a sea of people pushed each other to catch a glimpse of the champion. His family and friends hugged him with tears in their eyes and his team shouted his name.
In the interview before the podium ceremony, he spoke in Portuguese to thank his Brazilian fans who have supported him since the beginning of his career.
The people applauding him were the same ones who helped him face a difficult start of the season. In those moments, the championship seemed almost out of reach.
Not the Best Start
In 2023, Bortoleto stepped up to Formula 3 after a strong second campaign in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine
The Brazilian joined the Trident team. Alongside him were Leonardo Fornaroli and Oliver Goethe. His F3 season was marked by impressive consistency. This enabled him to secure the title in Monza after just the qualifying session.
His rookie win in the F3 championship allowed him to graduate to Formula 2 with Invicta racing. At the same time, he was announced as a new member of the McLaren Driver Development Program.
In F2 Gabriel Bortoleto knew that fighting for the title required a step forward in terms of speed and mental preparations. Therefore, when it was time to go out on track in Bahrain for the first qualifying session of the year, he was ready.
The results of this approach came straight away. He secured a front row for the race on Sunday, alongside Kush Maini. However, the Indian driver was disqualified so his teammate inherited the pole position.
In his first round of the season, Bortoleto finished in P6 and P5 for the Sprint Race and Feature Race respectively. For the race on Sunday, the Brazilian had a poor start, dropping him down the order. A positive for him was that he earned double points on his debut.
However, everything became more complicated in Jeddah and Melbourne. On both occasions, Bortoleto failed to score any points, falling back in the standings.
In the feature Races in both Saudi Arabia and Australia, his car had technical problems preventing him from finishing.
Additionally, at the beginning of the Sprint Race in Melbourne, he was taken out with Pepe Marti after an incident caused by Isack Hadjar.
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Back on the Podium
After two challenging rounds, the Brazilian driver maintained his spirit and fought harder than ever for victory. This was reflected in his impressive results.
Starting from Imola, Bortoleto managed to score points in almost every race. Except on two occasions – the Hungarian and the Belgian Sprint races.
In Hungary, he finished in sixteenth place. In Belgium, the race was cut short due to heavy rain, preventing him from reaching the points.
He achieved his first pole position in Imola, marking a return to European circuits where he felt more comfortable, having spent much of his motorsport career racing there.
However, his lead did not last long.
Oliver Bearman capitalized on his experience to overtake him at the start of the race. However, Bearman encountered issues during a pit stop, hindering his performance.
This allowed Isack Hadjar to secure the win, with Bortoleto finishing in second place.
While waiting for his opportunity to claim a victory, the Brazilian continued to narrow the gap between himself and the top positions in the Drivers’ standings.
The race in Austria proved to be a turning point in his championship run, as he secured a win on Sunday.
At the Red Bull Ring, Bortoleto qualified in third place, but by lap four, he had already taken the lead.
Throughout the race, he showcased his talent and speed from the very beginning, and despite Colapinto and Hadjar attempting to catch him, the Invicta driver was too fast to be caught.
The Turning Point
The moment when Bortoleto started to be seriously considered in the title fight was after the Feature Race in Belgium. Everybody watched the F3 champion with interest, seeing him raising the championship standings one step at a time.
However, after the hard fight with Hadjar for the win at SPA, new heads turned.
The Brazilian overtook Paul Aron for second place in the standings, 36 points behind Hadjar. This was a significant distance but, with four rounds and eight races left, anything was possible.
During the summer break, his name started to circulate in the F1 paddock. The Brazilian had become a contendor for Sauber’s second seat. However, nothing had been confirmed yet.
Coming back to Monza, where Bortoleto won the F3 title just the year before, an exciting battle between the title contenders was highly anticipated.
Bortoleto did not disappoint.
After a spin in qualifying, he was forced to start both races from the back of the gird. What could have been a huge bowl in his championship hope, the Invicta driver transformed into a new challenge.
With this motivation and with a masterclass of overtakes, Bortoleto finished in the points on Saturday. He also won the race on Sunday.
The gap in points between him and Hadjar was reduced to 10.5. This was mainly due to a difficult weekend for the Franco-Algerian, who failed to score any points.
A similar situation happened in Baku. Even there, Bortoleto was able to recover several points from Hadjar. Even better, he surpassed him in the F2 championship standings with just two rounds remaining.
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Brazil Has a New Champion
While the drivers prepared to face the last races of the year, news came out. Bortoleto was announced as part of Sauber’s 2025 F1 driver lineup alongside Nico Hulkenberg.
A huge step up for the Brazilian, who just two years ago finished his second Formula Regional Europe season in sixth place.
After the announcement, Bortoleto was more motivated than ever to win the F2 Championship. He wanted to prove his value and his talent before stepping up to the most famous Motorsport series in the world.
The goal seemed more difficult to achieve after the Qatar weekend. On that occasion, Hadjar managed to reduce the point difference between them to just half a point.
Bortoleto refused to give up. In Abu Dhabi, he was ready to give his all to secure that F2 title.
In the Sprint race, he managed to recover some points from this opponent. On Sunday, also thanks to a stall by Hadjar at the start, he became the F2 champion.
A New Beginning
In recent years, only few drivers managed to win the F2 title as rookies. Alongside the names of Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and George Russell, Bortoleto is the latest driver to accomplish this impressive result.
As it was last year, consistency and talent were the keys to adding another championship to Bortoleto’s belt and to present himself in Formula 1 in the best way possible.
The F2 champion was able to turn a challenging start to the season in a way to improve throughout the year, finding out his opponents’ weaknesses and his own strong qualities to exploit on track.
Before the final round in Abu Dhabi, Bortoleto spoke with selected media, including LWOS, on his F2 season and how he has evolved as a driver in this past year:
“The begging of the season was very tough for me. I had two qualifying where I did not performe as I should, this were Jeddah and Melbourne. I did some mistakes and I also ad a crash at the begging of the year with Hadjar in Melbourne. Zero points [achieved] for two weekends in a row. There were some difficult moments in the season.
“When you know you have a good car able to fight for a championship you never want to let points escape and you want to maximize everything. To go over that moments was very tough but we did it and I became a better driver after that. I’m proud of that.” – Gabriel Bortoleto to LWOS.
Even his approach has changed since Bahrain, showing how feeder series enable a driver to mature and recognize his mistakes:
“The best learning I had this year was to focus on the process. When I had a tough beginning of season I was always thinking about winning races and get pole positions. In that moment I should have not thought like that. I was too focused on the final result but not in what I needed to do to to get there.
“As soon as I realized that, step by step, race by race, from FP to quali to Race 1 and Race 2, I started to get my results back. That was the moment when I felt more comfortable and enjoyed a lot racing. There was always so much pressure in thinking about the finale result that I did not enjoy it enough.” – Gabriel Bortoleto to LWOS
Bortoleto’s future looks brighter than ever right now. After winning F3 and F2 consecutively, he already secured a seat in Formula 1.
This will give him the chance to prove his talent once again. This time in front of the eyes of the F1 fans around the world.
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