Gabriel Bortoleto to drive for Sauber in 2025 Formula 1 season
Current leader of this year’s Formula 2 championship Gabriel Bortoleto will race for Kick Sauber alongside German Nico Hulkenburg in the 2025 F1 season.
Bortoleto won the Formula 3 drivers championship in his rookie season, and now is fighting for the Formula 2 championship, sitting at the top of the standings.
The Brazilian will partner Formula 1 veteran Hulkenburg at Sauber in 2025, before the team is taken over by Audi in 2026. The two will replace Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou, who Sauber announced would both leave the team at the end of the 2024 season.
Sauber sit at the bottom of the constructors championship this season, with Bottas and Zhou yet to pick up a single point in 21 races. The two drivers are accompanied by Logan Sargent on zero points, who was dropped by Williams earlier in the season.
The departure of Bottas and Zhou was somewhat a shock to F1 fans considering Bottas’ race winning history at Mercedes and Zhou’s promising rookie season at Alfa Romeo in the 2022 Season. Yet the two have been hindered by driving the worst car on the grid.
Bortoleto is a serious talent with an impressive resume in motorsport so far. Sauber needed a promising, young driver with a race winning pedigree and the Brazilian ticks every box.
The former member of the Mclaren driver development programme will be the first full-time Brazilian on the grid since the departure of Felipe Massa back in 2017.
Rookie Bortoleto will be hoping as Sauber transition into Audi in 2026 he can follow in the footsteps of Brazilian greats Nelson Piquet, Emerson Fittipaldi and Ayrton Senna.
