As Gabriel Bortoleto chased Fernando Alonso for seventh place in Austria, his team principal Jonathan Wheatley put out a call to McLaren’s Zak Brown not to lap his driver.
Alas, the McLaren team-mates did, first Lando Norris and then Oscar Piastri passing the Sauber driver and then the Aston Martin.
Sauber: Don’t lap us!
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Bortoleto attacked Alonso for position late in the Austrian Grand Prix, sneaking up the inside only for the Spaniard to immediately fight back and regain P7.
All the while, the race-leading McLaren team-mates were closing in as they fought between themselves for the race win.
Bortoleto and Alonso were shown the blue flags to allow the race leaders through, which all but put an end to the battle.
It had Bortoleto’s team boss Wheatley laughing as he told the media, including PlanetF1.com, that he had messaged McLaren CEO Zak Brown to ask that his drivers stay behind.
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“I was more looking behind at getting lapped, and I messaged Zak in the race and said, ‘Don’t lap us!’,” Wheatley said with a chuckle.
“But they did.
“That would have been the cherry on the icing on the cake. And I think we could have had a slightly different result, but there you go.”
Bortoleto took the chequered flag in eighth place behind his manager to score his maiden Formula 1 points on the 11th time of asking.
For Wheatley, it was “inevitable” that the Brazilian would become a Formula 1 points-scorer as he shared details of the rookie’s journey, which unlike some of the other new drivers on the grid, did not include an extensive TPC [Testing Previous Car] programme.
Bortoleto was a McLaren junior managed by Alonso before signing with Sauber in November last year.
“I just felt it was inevitable,” said the team principal. “And I know there was a little bit of a story brewing, like, ‘Oh, he’s the only one without points’.
“But he’s just been on this journey and the mature approach he’s had since the beginning of it, in his work ethic, it’s like it’s not even something I gave thought to, it was only stuff that the media was asking me about.
“And what I love is, and what I’ve seen in the past with young drivers as well is, even though they have all the confidence in the world, each of these milestones just makes them build on it and build on it and build on it. And their confidence grows and grows and grows, you know.
“And he’s got a very, very bright future ahead of him.”
“This is a circuit that Gabi knows,” he added. “It’s easy to forget it’s his first year, he hasn’t done this 10,000 hours of TPC testing in a Formula One car. He’s learning on the job. He’s learning at each track.
“This is a track that, okay we thought would suit the car, but it also suits Gabi. But then every circuit is going to suit him and Nico if the car keeps performing the way it is.”
Bortoleto’s performance at the Red Bull Ring saw him voted Driver of the Day by Formula 1 fans.
“He should have had it in other races as well,” claimed Wheatley. “I’m super excited for him and super pleased for him.
“He drove a flawless race, absolutely flawless across every tyre set, worked his way through traffic, did clever things with lapping, unlapping. It was a flawless performance.”
Bortoleto’s team-mate Nico Hulkenberg was ninth across the line in Sauber’s first double points haul of the F1 2025 championship. The team is up to 26 points, two behind Aston Martin in the battle for P8 in the Constructors” Championship.
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