No points or pressure: How Sauber is supporting Gabriel Bortoleto’s rookie F1 season

In terms of points on the board – which convert into dollars in the coffers once Formula 1’s prize funds are dished out – Gabriel Bortoleto has yet to deliver on his considerable early promise. Only two other drivers – Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto – are also on zero points and neither of them has driven the full season.

So it would be easy for a casual viewer to look at the 20 points accrued so far by Bortoleto’s team-mate Nico Hulkenberg and conclude that the German veteran was doing a better job. Bortoleto counts himself among the members of Hulkenberg’s fan club.

“He’s taking out of the car more than he actually should be,” said Bortoleto after the Canadian Grand Prix. “I think he’s an excellent driver. And I really admire everything he’s doing – because I think it’s impressive.”

In certain other teams struggling to maximise their points take from races, you might reasonably expect reports to emerge of replacement drivers being teed up – especially with the summer break around the corner. But Sauber is a team which is building towards something better, after recent bouts of boardroom turbulence, as it prepares to adopt the identity of Audi’s factory team from next year.

The impression is one of a team which has identified solutions to many of its problems and is working its way through them methodically – and is encouraging Bortoleto to do the same.

Although Hulkenberg scored his first points of the year in the season-opener in Australia, that was chiefly a factor of him being among those who changed to the intermediate tyre at what proved to be the right moment. Subsequent races demonstrated this was an outlier result and it became clear the C45 was suffering chronic airflow separation when running in ‘dirty air’ behind other cars.

Nico Hulkenberg, Kick Sauber, Gabriel Bortoleto, Kick Sauber

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

In China, Bortoleto alluded not only to loss of downforce in traffic but also severe buffeting around his head and neck which made it difficult to drive.

“One of the easiest tracks to overtake of the season and it’s just so tough,” he lamented. “I cannot be too close to the car ahead. “I lose downforce. I just cannot follow very close, and then it’s impossible to overtake.”

Rather than blame the car’s shortcomings on one or both drivers, Sauber focused on finding a ‘fix’ – and brought a substantial upgrade package to the Spanish GP, based on a new floor but also including a new front wing and revisions around the engine cover, as well as the so-called ‘Coke bottle’ area of bodywork inboard of the rear wheels. During the FIA-mandated ‘show and tell’ session that weekend, sporting director Inaki Rueda made it very clear the point of the upgrade was better driveability rather than more peak downforce.

“It’s very common that as you put downforce on, you get a more peaky profile,” Rueda explained. “So you usually get to a point that you get a car that is decent, let’s say, but is undriveable in tricky conditions. It is a point that was highlighted at the start of the season, on our first test with this car. And this is hopefully the fix for that.”

In the races that followed, though, Hulkenberg was the driver who performed better on race day and that is another area where both Bortoleto and the team are aware of where the shortcomings lie – and how to fix them.

When team boss Mattia Binotto chose Bortoleto over Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu last year, it was clear he believed the F2 champion would be an upgrade in terms of speed. That’s certainly been true in qualifying, where Bortoleto has beaten Hulkenberg – himself a qualifier of great repute – more than once.

Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Sunday execution has been the issue – such as spinning in the wet in Australia, getting the start wrong in Japan, being mugged by Fernando Alonso after the safety car in Spain. All of these feed into experience – that horrible word “learnings” – and Bortoleto has demonstrated his eagerness to learn, even flying to the factory between Japan and Bahrain to debrief with Binotto.

What he’s perhaps lacking at the moment is the deep-seated confidence born of experience which Hulkenberg has. The German’s recent stand-out results, in Spain and Canada, were built on establishing track position on the opening lap.

In Montreal, for instance, Hulkenberg read the situation between Franco Colapinto and Alex Albon developing ahead of him and positioned his car to take maximum benefit from what happened next: Albon going off-track, and Colapinto’s assertive line into the corner compromising his exit. A driver of Hulkenberg’s experience can see an opportunity such as this much further in advance and anticipate how best to seize the moment.

In Spain, Bortoleto outqualified Hulkenberg but didn’t maximise his ‘take’ on the opening lap. He might still have been on for points his one-stop strategy didn’t pay off thanks to the timing of the safety car – and neither the strategy nor the full-course yellow were his doing.

“You see the race in a different way – that I’m not able yet to see,” said Bortoleto of his experience deficit relative to Hulkenberg. “I think he’s very good at doing this. So I think I’m learning from him. Hopefully I can do the same steps he’s doing right now and start scoring some points for the team.”

Calm heads prevail at Sauber these days and one thing you can be certain of is that Bortoleto will get the time and support he needs.