How Alonso's 'best rookie' is turning into the 'future star' he is expected to be

20:16, 07 Aug

byKada Sarkozi

After the Hungarian Grand Prix, the mood was great within the Sauber team. In the motorhome, both Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg were greeted with big high fives. Team principal Jonathan Wheatley talked about what makes his current line-up stand out.

Jonathan Wheatley has decades of experience inside the Formula 1 paddock. He worked for the Renault team that won two world titles with Fernando Alonso, and in 2006, he joined Red Bull Racing, celebrating the team's biggest successes as Sporting Director.

Answering GPblog's question about working with the team's current line-up, Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg, the Briton pointed out how good this collaboration is.

"It's incredibly important. I have to say that it's the closest, most collaborative driver pairing I think I can even remember in all my time in Formula 1. Gabriel has a fantastic work ethic. He has a capacity for taking on new information. He's proving every way to be the future star that we expected him to be," the team principal began.

Together with that, he also had high praise for Nico Hulkenberg. The German didn't score points on this occasion at the Hungaroring, but achieved his first ever podium this season in Silverstone.

"Nico is part of that journey with him. On the other side of the engineering table, you've got this extraordinary experience and Nico's proven talent. I mean, we're talking about Gabi a lot today, but Nico did a tremendous job. You don't really see it or you don't notice it because it didn't result in a points finish. As a team, we're very pleased with both of our drivers."

Gabriel Bortoleto finished in P6 at the Hungarian Grand Prix

Bortoleto achieves career-high result

The Brazilian finished in P6 at the Hungaroring, his best result at an F1 Grand Prix. Some weeks ago, his mentor, Fernando Alonso declared that he is the best rookie of the current generation, and at the Hungaroring, he said that if Bortoleto was British, 'he'd be on the front page of every newspaper.'

Wheatley also underlined Bortoleto's achievement. "It's worth pointing out again that he hasn't done 10,000 kilometers of testing of previous cars. He hasn't done 10,000 kilometers in the Formula 1 car. It is his first season in Formula 1. There are so many circuits that he's not been to and there's some coming up that he hasn't been to."

"He's been able to deliver brilliantly over the last few races on circuits that he knows. And I think he's matured as a driver and I think he's going to be able to adapt to these new circuits much quicker than he did in the first half of the season," he concluded.