Autosport Top 50 of 2024: #32 Gabriel Bortoleto

Gabriel Bortoleto continued to emulate Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Oscar Piastri in 2024, following up his rookie Components 3 title with becoming Formula 2 champion at the first attempt.

The goal was to shortly adapt to F2’s new Dallara, and the Brazilian suffered a gradual begin to the yr with reliability woes in Jeddah and getting tangled with Pepe Marti in Australia, earlier than a run of twenty-two races with solely two non-scores catapulted him to the summit, earning him a 2025 F1 seat with Sauber.

In a yr of 18 totally different race winners, Bortoleto secured function race victories on the Crimson Bull Ring and Monza.

Bortoleto’s last-to-first Monza heroics

Following the Hungarian dash race, Isack Hadjar seemed to have one hand firmly on the championship trophy, holding a big factors lead over the chasing pack. However a run of seven races with just one factors rating – a victory within the Belgian function race – left the door barely, properly, ajar.

Bortoleto was amongst these profiting from this hunch, however a crash in qualifying at Monza threatened to undo all of his good work. Nonetheless, the Invicta driver was not going to let his back-of-the-grid beginning place get him down, as he recovered to eighth within the dash race to safe half a degree – having completed with the very same race time as Dennis Hauger.

With the longer function race format, there have been tentative ideas behind closed doorways {that a} podium may even be doable within the Sunday competitors.

Opting to stay on the common technique moderately than take a raffle, Bortoleto tore by way of the backmarkers early on then stayed out a lap longer than the leaders earlier than pitting. With the security automobile popping out as a result of a collision involving drivers exiting the pits, the Brazilian was gifted an inexpensive cease, which vaulted him to the entrance.

Recalling his beautiful last-to-first victory, he advised Autosport: “That race was a redemption weekend, a really spectacular one for me. We had a really unhealthy quali, the place I made a giant mistake and spun on the primary push. We knew we had been very quick and had good tempo from FP after which we simply saved the heads up; did an amazing dash race overtaking vehicles in 20 laps, then the Sunday was mega.

“I managed to increase the primary stint on the choice set of tyres and we had been completely flying. Then we had the pitstop at nice timing and all the things got here again on monitor. We overtook some extra guys, acquired to the lead, and from there on I did quali lap after quali lap. Even when it was not wanted, I simply saved pushing a lot.

“I completed forward of P2 by about 10 seconds, so it was most likely the very best race of my life. Efficiency-wise, pace-wise, all the things was simply nice.”

A shocking victory at Monza was the height of Bortoleto’s stellar rookie yr in F2

Photograph by: Invicta Virtuosi Racing