Gabriel Bortoleto has responded to Max Verstappen’s praise and revealed that the world champion has actually already supported and helped him in his career.
Sauber talent Gabriel Bortoleto has responded to the words of praise from world champion Max Verstappen: The Dutchman revealed on the Brazilian podcast Pelas Pistas that he had advised his Red Bull team several years ago to keep an eye on the Brazilian for the future.
Ahead of this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix (see the full schedule here), Bortoleto confirmed that Verstappen had supported him throughout his career and that he even knew that the Dutchman had spoken to Red Bull about him. Only the exact details were unknown to him until now.
“That’s great, so it’s no news that I have a very good relationship with him,” reveals the current Sauber driver. “Max was very supportive of me in the junior classes when I was growing up, but he was also always very realistic with me.”
“I never asked him to do anything for me, I sought a lot of advice from him about my future and the decisions I wanted to make, where I should go, what opportunities I had,” confirms the 21-year-old, who made a big sacrifice for his Formula 1 dream and moved to Europe alone at the age of eleven.
Bortoleto seeks advice from Max Verstappen
“I asked him, ‘What do you think? Should I go here or there?’ and he helped me with that,” says Bortoleto about his relationship with the four-time world champion. “I knew he had talked to Red Bull, but I didn’t know when or anything.”
In the podcast, Verstappen now revealed a little more about the talks with Red Bull. “And I thought, ‘Ah, okay, that’s nice that he did that back then,’” Bortoleto grins. “But yes, even Jonathan [Wheatley, team boss] said that many times before they signed me here.”
“Max told him, ‘Keep an eye on this guy, he could be very good in Formula 1.’ I don’t want to say too much, let him tell you himself,” says the Sauber driver, who is driving his first Formula 1 season, but remains cautious. “But in any case, it’s very nice of him to have done that.”