Current Formula 2 Brazilian racer Gabriel Bortoleto has
had an impressive run through the junior racing ladder and earned himself a
slot in McLaren’s driver development program back in 2023 – but with both
McLaren seats filled for the near future, what’s next for Bortoleto?
According to McLaren boss
Andrea Stella, the Woking-based outfit “won’t stop” Bortoleto from racing in
Formula 1 — perhaps even if that means he’d be racing for a different team in
the future.
“Conversations are ongoing” in Gabriele Bortoleto’s
McLaren future
With only 20 seats available in Formula 1, finding space for
every young, talented driver to ascend through the ranks of various junior
programs can be a serious challenge — especially when teams have signed an
impressive slate of developmental talent but have nowhere to put them in the
near future.
One such talent is Gabriele Bortoleto. A protégé of Fernando
Alonso, the young Brazilian racer took a commanding championship victory in
Formula 3 last year despite only securing two wins — a testament to his ongoing
reliability as a driver.
Naturally, Bortoleto caught the attention of the Formula 1
world with such a stellar debut — earning him a slot in McLaren’s Driver
Development Programme as well as a seat in the 2024 Formula 2 season.
At the moment, Bortoleto currently leads the F2
championship, though he’s only 4.5 points ahead of second-placed driver (and
Red Bull junior) Isack Hadjar.
However, as 2024 has shown, young drivers like Oliver
Bearman and Franco Colapinto have been able to make the sudden jump to Formula
1 with great success — and that means Bortoleto has become something of a hot
commodity in the paddock.
But there’s a problem: Only two seats remain on the 2025
Formula 1 grid.
The first seat with the VCARB team can reasonably be assumed
to go to a Red Bull driver, such as Liam Lawson — which means that only Sauber
remains as a potential seat for Bortoleto.
Several drivers remain in contention for that seat, such as
Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu — but Bortoleto’s name has entered the picture
of late, even earning a rave review from reigning champion Max Verstappen who
told media that, “If I was Sauber, I would have signed him already.”
That brings us to our next problem: Bortoleto is a McLaren
junior, and Sauber has no serious ties to the Woking team.
Heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix, McLaren team
principal Andrea Stella was quizzed on Bortoleto’s future involvement with the
team — and what his future could look like in Formula 1.
“Having the possibility to talk about Gabriel, I would like
to take this opportunity to say once again how good of work he’s been doing in
junior categories — winning F3, leading F2 at the first season,” Stella said in
the FIA press conference on Friday.
“And this is to lead into the fact that I think it’s very,
very normal and natural that Formula 1 teams are interested in having Gabriel
as a driver.
“In terms of McLaren, McLaren will not stop the possibility for Gabriel to drive Formula 1.
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