Nico Hulkenberg was happy with hard racing in F1 Brazil GP en-route points, as he advices Gabriel Bortoleto who takes blame and as a learning weekend.
It was another Q3 run for Sauber’s Hulkenberg in F1 Brazil GP qualifying which allowed him to in thick of things in terms of points fight. But his start wasn’t ideal as he lost couple of places. However, he stuck to his gun in the hunt for points, which is when they decided to alter the strategy.
They went for a one-stop run but had soft for his long second stint. By the end of it, he ran 35 laps on the red-walled tyres. He was amid the long queue of cars behind Liam Lawson. In fact, he lost to Isack Hadjar late in the race to drop back to ninth, defending from Pierre Gasly.
He eventually managed to hang on amid the two-stop runners, which he enjoyed overall. “Yeah, I think with the rest of the race, I’m pretty happy,” said Hulkenberg to media. “It was clean, some good, fun racing, gritty racing, hard racing in the midfield at the end. Yeah, obviously not ideal first lap, losing a couple of positions, which never helps your case.
“But we came back from that with, I think, yeah, effective one stop. Quite a long stint on the softs this time around. And it was a used soft, so that was nice to pull that off. Yeah, there was some good, good fair battling going on. It was all pretty clean, but hard today, so that was enjoyable. For strategy, we were always a bit not confident with the hards.
“I think the hards, obviously, it’s a name, but it’s a C2 compound. And quite hard for here and we didn’t think that is the best race tyre,” summed up Hulkenberg, who had sound words for teammate Bortoleto, who had a terrible run eventually. He not only had a crash in sprint, he did so in the grand prix as well, after he was unable to take part in F1 qualifying.
“Yeah, hard one, but I mean, it’s obviously, it’s ironic that it’s such bad timing because he’s done such a brilliant season, up to this point,” continued Hulkenberg. “And then, this weekend, obviously, you make one wrong action yesterday in a split second and everything goes in the bin. This is the very tough and hard part about our sport, our industry, which he got to see now as well.
“I know he will bounce back. I know, it’s cheesy now to say that, but it will make him stronger. He will have probably 20 more home races to come, and they can only get better,” summed up Hulkenberg, as Bortoleto accepted misjudgment in the incident with Lance Stroll which ended his race. The Brazilian made a good start and was seemingly eager to pass the Canadian, going for a small gap.
A minor clip left him spinning into the barrier on Lap 1 itself. He accepted it to be racing incident, as did the stewards. “It was a good start, it was nice,” said Bortoleto to media. “I overtook two cars, it was Lewis and Colapinto on the outside of six. It was a nice move. And then Lance, 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. It is just racing,” summed up Bortoleto. The Brazilian reflected on the miss in his home race in Brazil, but took it to his chin and as another race where things simply didn’t work out for him. On Saturday, he highlighted that he wanted to take risk in his move against Alexander Albon, which will help him learn more about his future moves.
He went for it on Sunday too but it was a bit eager at the wrong time. He took it in his stride to do better from the learning experience. “Tough weekend, a weekend to forget and move on,” said Bortoleto. “I just take the positives that my whole country was here supporting me, the Brazilians. 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. I believe it’s a consequence of things that happened earlier in the weekend. 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. 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. 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. 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,” summed up Bortoleto.
Here’s crash for Gabriel Bortoleto: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-bortoleto-crashes-out-of-his-home-race-on-lap-1.1848334136400664977