Fernando Alonso is not embarrassed to complain about the slightest bit. His recent Barb, Sauber’s Gabriel Boltreto performance in 2025, has been overlooked and falls into the latter category. His claim that Boltreto is “the best newcomer of this generation” is controversial, but he certainly has an impact, but “if he’s in English or something like that, and if he finishes sixth in Sauber he’ll be on the front page of every newspaper” in fact Boltreto has earned the headlines.
Alonso is not fair when it comes to Bortoleto, who joined the A14 Management stable in September 2022. The deal set a bolt rate towards the Formula 3 pass and Formula 2 title before graduating to Formula 1 at Sauber this year. Alonso would have had the point that Boltreto was ignored two months ago, but recent performances allowed him to be neglected. For those with great care, his quality was clear early on, but since Sauber’s recent rise was formed, he has proven it.
Boltreto started 2025 as a support player for the rookie star cast. Kimi Antonelli, considered Verstappen of Mercedes Verstappen, shared the best bill with Ferrari Junior Ollie Bearman of Haas. Even Isack Hadjar, reluctantly promoted to F1 by Red Bull, bouncing off from crashing on the formation lap of his Grand Prix debut, was hailed as a top rookie. His uncertainty about the future of the alpine mountains kept Jacques Dehan in the headline early on. Boltreto, on the other hand, was easily forgotten.
The 20-year-old Brazilian’s first 10 Grand Prix weekend brought him a point finish and a top grid position in 12th place. However, there were positive signs as his qualifying performances were well stacked compared to his veteran teammate Nico Furkenberg. His race was more unstable as you would expect, but that was up to the difficult Sauber C45, which was suffering from aerodynamic instability. Floor upgrades for Race 9 of the season in Spain changed everything.
“Since I brought my first upgrade (in Spain), it feels like the car has changed the corner balance a bit,” says Boltreto. “Sometimes, I was approaching the corner in a certain way, but the car wasn’t acting like how it wanted it to behave.
“Or when we were following in dirty air, it was sometimes very sensitive. In China, I spinned just because I crossed the dirty air of Bearman. We were fighting, so he crossed in front of me and I completely lost downforce and spun.
Turbulent air is the universal truth of F1, but Sauber suffered more from it than most cars, a Peaky and unpredictable car in clear air. In the first eight events of the season, Sauber was able to reach the second quarter if the driver nailed it in the first segment of qualifying, but doing so was particularly challenging thanks to those traits. Voltoreto reached three quarters in both China and Miami sprint sessions.
These early races were mixed bags in cars that tend to get worse in the long run. Boltreto crashed in Australia and collided with Kimi Antoneri on his first lap in Monaco, but flirted with a point finish at Imola, but was thwarted at a pit stop shortly before VSC set up a path to finish at the end. In Bahrain he struggled with confidence and managing tire degradation, but in Miami he had a good run at the Grand Prix before engine issues put him out. Remember, this was in a seasonal phase when Sauber was the weakest car in balance and didn’t give either driver confidence to push. The team’s only point finish was Hulkenberg’s seventh place in Australia. This meant that while Boltreto had shown lots of flashes of form, he still stitched the weekend together, meaning the wider world was aware of his qualities.
It began to change in Spain. He showed his adaptability by running through the old floor on Friday as Sauber completed rigorous background testing on the upgrade package, but from the moment he was bolted to the FP3 car on Saturday, he gelled it. He quickly surpassed his teammates, then after Halkenberg advanced in the start, Boltret ran with him and then left to run for a long time. After Hulkenberg bolted fresh soft on a slow safety car, Bortoleto finished 12 while Hulkenberg surged to fifth placeth When he could easily be there with his teammates. Again, it was clear to those with great care that Boltrate had once again tied up a strong weekend when it was not rewarded with points.
Austria was a breakout weekend for Boltreto, adding another 2-point scoring finish before summer vacation. Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images
A tricky weekend in Montreal followed, but he quickly realised his error in the first quarter driving under-qualifying round before the race he fought against the tires. Then there was a breakthrough in Austria. He qualified eighth and finished seventh behind Alonso using the car in another step of floor development. He knew he should beat his mentor, once again demonstrated his ability to recognize where he needed to improve.
“I went to the move in turn 3 and then I made a mistake from my side in that he got the doctor,” Boltreto said. “If you had waited a bit before hitting the (detect) line and getting a DRS at the exit, you probably got him. It was the end of the race so you only moved one or two laps to make the move. Back.”
There, Boltreto’s willingness to accept that he was thought showed that he was a very old head on his young shoulder. This quality is evident in everything he says about himself, talking about his desire to appear as the strongest all-around driver he can. So you’ll feel some of Alonso’s influences, coupled with the fact that Boltret shares the sharp competitiveness of the Double World Champion’s razor. He even has hints of Alonso’s off-track combat. Those qualities make him a good replacement.
He also shows his ability to bounce back from disasters. The next race at Silverstone was a nightmare, spinning on the beckett of the FP3, causing damage to the floor. So he qualified for the pre-Austrian specification, beating Halkenberg and switching to a wet slick at the end of the formation lap before spinning the barrier and tagging it with a monastery. Again, it was an opportunity for introspection. He later said of the tire decision, “When you’re a newcomer, you always want to do something a little different.” In the mitigation, two of his fellow rookies, Bearman and Hajar, made the same misjudgment, while George Russell and Charles Leclair were also the best in the business. However, he followed this with two outstanding weekends in consecutive events in Belgium and Hungary.
At the spa, he qualified 10th He finished 9th in both the sprint and the main event. The latter point is the only point, but it was a great performance. Then Hungary came. There he went 8th and finished seventh, and was walking at the faster Aston Martin after Lance first made his way forward. Benefiting from another Sauber floor upgrade, he extracted everything from the package at both events. His reward is finally a worthy note from the world he sees.
One thing that reminds Alonso regularly justifies everyone is that the preparation for Bortoleto to enter F1 was very limited in that the TPC (previous car tests) would run. He left him with something like Antonelli, who completed a comprehensive testing program last year, and something like Bearman, who raced three times in 2024 in terms of Formula 1 mileage. Boltret is a fast learner, an adaptive driver, and tends to go towards a more aggressive corner entry style than Halkenberg, but this is not universally the case. He recognizes the need to change his approach according to the type of corner and conditions. This is important in these tricky ground effect F1 vehicles. Interestingly, he also suggests that some of its adaptability is drawn from his love for Simlace. This suggests that it may allow drivers to develop greater resistance to rear instability.
He also has all the characteristics of a driver that gets better as he climbs the ladder. He caught his eye on the cart and with his early steps in single-seater, but it wasn’t until F3 and F2 that he began to win titles. Signed by McLaren in his 2023 F3 campaign, he gave the team a positive impression, but for a long time, title rivals Randororis and Oscar Piastri had to seek F1 opportunities elsewhere. Sauber was the only port available in his particular storm, and despite the long-term appeal of the transformation to Audi, there was a very real risk that his entire season might have looked like an early stage. Luckily, Sauber’s impressive advances in development saved him from the damage of such unfair reputation.
Boltreto is still on a steep learning curve, with three points finishing in the final four races trending as he becomes a consistent scorer at the end of the season. He demonstrates adaptability, intelligence, determination and speed that means having a bright future in Formula 1. There were signs of this early in the season, but now the improvements in the machinery have made it very clear to everyone. Yes, Fernando, even the English-speaking media, have realized how good you are Protégé teeth…