Fernando Alonso, Gabriel Bortoleto joked about their scary run-in in F1 Saudi Arabian GP, as both had no pace to get inside the Top 10.
The strategy difference in F1 Saudi Arabian GP brought Aston Martin’s Alonso and Sauber’s Bortoleto together at one point on track in a scary moment for both. The Brazilian was defending from Liam Lawson, when the Spaniard popped up at Turn 1 out of nowhere.
Lawson managed to get through Bortoleto, and when the Brazilian tried to position himself to get back on him at Turn 1 exit, Alonso showed himself on the outside in a surprise to the Sauber driver. He couldn’t spot the Aston Martin car, as he hid behind Lawson and popped up on the scene.
Post-race the duo brushed it off in a joke. “I was surprised, I nearly crashed, which is the last thing you want, but he didn’t see me,” said Alonso to media. “I had to avoid the corner, and then I gave back quickly the position, because I didn’t want to be penalised. Nothing changed in the race, we were both struggling. We fly together now back home. Maybe no dinner for him.”
Bortoleto added: “I tried to make him a bit scared. I think I didn’t see him because I just understood there was one car behind me. So as soon as the car behind me overtook me, I tried to open the corner and Fernando was there. So, I just felt a big hit in the lateral side of my car, and I saw Fernando and I was like, ‘hello’. And luckily no incidents, no damage for anyone.”
On the race side, both didn’t have enough legs to get inside the Top 10. Alonso was closest to get into it after finishing 12th on the road but was promoted to 11th after Lawson’s penalty. The Spaniard reckons that Aston Martin is too slow to finish in points on its own.
“I think we are in another race compared to them [Racing Bulls],” said Alonso. “We just managed to keep up with the DRS train, just following them in the beginning. We had a good strategy, now at the end, Liam had a 10s penalty. We keep capitalising from other people mistakes, penalties, Yuki and Gasly on Lap 1, if not probably P13 and not P11, so we just take whatever the others are giving at the table.”
As for Bortoleto, he was too far off to put himself anywhere in the points scheme. “In my case, I didn’t have any other choice,” he said. “I had only one because of my FP2 miss and the tyre choice we had for Qualy and etc. We had only for the race available one set of new hard and one set of new medium and many softs.
“But it’s useless to put any softs in this condition because they are going to last like 5 laps, I think. So, I used my medium to start, then I put the hards first push, first lap on the safety car and I needed to stick to that. And the tyres were completely gone at the end of the race, there was nothing left of it. I had so much vibration in the tyres, I think if I had 5 more laps they were going to blow up.”
Here’s Fernando Alonso avoiding Gabriel Bortoleto: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-alonso-just-avoids-a-huge-crash-with-bortoleto.1829948545188178902
