Gabriel Bortoleto rues “painful” home Brazil GP after two crashes a lesson in risk management

Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto claimed he would walk away from his “tough” Brazilian Grand Prix weekend with lessons in risk management.

The 21-year-old driver suffered a violent crash during the sprint race at Interlagos. His team worked to repair the car in time for qualifying, but unfortunately failed, leaving the Brazilian driver starting from the back of the pack.

His first home grand prix took another turn when he crashed into the barriers on the opening lap of the race, which brought his weekend to an end.

“Yeah, tough weekend. Weekend to forget and move on. I just take the positives that my whole country was here supporting me, the Brazilians,” he explained.

“And I’m just sad because I have not been able to race today and show a bit of the pace that I believe we had. It comes from me, from my incident in the sprint race that caused me to not do quali. So I’m going to be the first one harsh on myself here, you know.

“I believe it’s a consequence of things that happened earlier in the weekend. But anyway, I mean, obviously it’s more painful because it’s my home race, but it’s just another weekend. We had so many good ones, we had bad ones as well.

“And there’s nothing I can do about it. I just need to move on, analyse things and learn from my mistakes and go for the next one.”

Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

Reflecting on the start, he added: “It was a good start, it was nice. I overtook two cars, it was Lewis [Hamilton] and [Franco] Colapinto on the outside of six.

It was a nice move. And then Lance [Stroll], I was just side by side with him out of nine.

“And then, there’s no pointing fingers here, just lap one. I was on the outside. He opened a little bit more than what there was of space there. He clipped my front tyre and I ended up in the wall.

“I think it’s a racing incident. Obviously, if he had given a bit more space, I would have done the corner. Probably overtaken him because he had worse tyres than I had because I was on softs.

“But again, it’s a racing incident. He didn’t do it on purpose, I’m sure. Every time I fight with him, he’s fair with me.”

While it was mainly a weekend to forget for Bortoleto, he admitted that he could take lessons from the incidents.

“I think just risk management. I think I’m happy that I’ve been trying to do different things this week and being more aggressive and trying things,” he added.

“But, like the sprint race, it’s probably not the best moment to try a risky thing when you can break your car and not do qualifying, like I did. So that’s for sure learning. So it’s just racing.”