This Sunday morning (8) began with a title for Brazilian motorsport. Gabriel Bortoleto, 20, from São Paulo, who will be a Sauber driver in Formula 1 in 2025, finished the Abu Dhabi GP (United Arab Emirates) in second place and achieved enough points to confirm the world title in Formula 2. He benefited due to the problems of his main rival, Frenchman Isack Hadjar, who let his car die at the start and ended up finishing 19th. Now Bortoleto has the Formula 3 titles (won last year) and Formula 2 on his resume.
Before the final race of the season, the Brazilian and the Frenchman were separated by just 4.5 points in the table: Bortoleto had 196.5 and Hadjar 192. This Sunday, the Brazilian driver started in second place, behind the Frenchman Victor Martins and soon ahead of Hadjar on the grid. However, right at the start things changed completely. Hadjar got stuck and had to go to the pits. Bortoleto overtook Martins and took the lead.
Seeing his main rival removed from the fight for the title, Bortoleto ran a safe race, managing his position. He dropped to tenth place after the pit stop, but recovered positions when his opponents had to stop and overtook Martins again on lap 29 to regain second position. The victory went to Paraguayan Joshua Durksen.
Bortoleto was champion with a final score of 214.5, having won two victories throughout the season. At the beginning of November, he was announced by Sauber as the team’s starting driver for the year 2025, teaming up with German Nico Hülkenberg. With this, Brazil will once again have a representative in the elite after Felipe Massa’s last race in 2017.
