New-for-2025 Sauber System 1 driver Gabriel Bortoleto has revealed he has “at all times admired” Max Verstappen and his driving fashion, inserting the Dutchman alongside Ayrton Senna as his inspiration in racing.
Bortoleto, who leads the F2 championship heading into the ultimate two rounds of the season, was introduced final week as Sauber’s second new recruit alongside Nico Hulkenberg within the crew’s remaining marketing campaign earlier than its transition into Audi’s works outfit.
The Brazilian has due to this fact left McLaren’s improvement programme to pursue the chance, having impressed in his rookie F2 season after clinching the F3 title in 2023.
Requested by the F1 Nation podcast which of the drivers he admired – apart from Fernando Alonso, who acts as Bortoleto’s supervisor – the Brazilian replied: “From these days, I actually like how Max drives, within the sense of… I actually admire his quali laps and the way a lot he extracts of the automobile in these laps, the best way he drives and races.
“Clearly it may be very laborious,” he added, acknowledging latest on-track controversies after Verstappen was penalised for driving requirements on the Mexico Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen, Crimson Bull Racing RB20
Picture by: Crimson Bull Content material Pool
“We have now seen within the final races, however clearly they’re preventing for a world championship, so all of us anticipate them to race one another like that.”
Explaining a connection to Verstappen, Bortoleto defined: “I’ve at all times admired how Max drives – since I used to be very younger, as a result of I used to be a part of a crew in go-karts that he grew up with, in order that they at all times informed me tales about him, and I used to be at all times like, ‘OK, what would Max do on this scenario?’
“I wished at all times to be a bit like him, as a result of he gained each single factor he did in junior sequence.”
Returning to his nationwide hero, Bortoleto insisted: “Clearly, my largest hero is Ayrton Senna, for the driving force he was, for the whole lot he did on observe, but in addition outdoors of the observe, I feel he was an amazing individual with nice morals, and the legacy he left behind, and the whole lot he did for Brazil, I feel that is one thing I’m impressed by.”
