Nico Hülkenberg praises his Sauber teammate Gabriel Bortoleto in the highest terms and predicts a successful career for the Brazilian.
Formula 1 veteran Nico Hülkenberg praises his teammate, Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto, at the media day for the Brazilian Grand Prix of the 2025 Formula 1 season.
“‘Gabi’ is one of the most promising rookies I’ve seen in a long time. He’s really got what it takes. He learns extremely quickly and he’s a very fast driver,” says Hülkenberg about Bortoleto. And he predicts a great future for him: “If he continues like this, he will have a really good and successful career.”
Bortoleto has marched through the junior classes like few others before him. The Brazilian became champion as a rookie in both Formula 3 (2023) and Formula 2 (2024). In the 2025 Formula 1 season, which is his rookie season, while Hülkenberg is already in his twelfth season as a regular driver, the team duel is quite balanced despite the big difference in experience.
Hülkenberg clearly has the upper hand in terms of World Championship points, not least because of his first podium finish ever. He achieved this in July with P3 in the rain at Silverstone. In addition to these 15 championship points, the German has collected 26 more championship points so far this season. With 41 points, he currently ranks ninth in the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ standings. Bortoleto is in 19th place with 19 championship points.
In the qualifying duel, however, it is Bortoleto who has the edge. After 20 qualifying sessions so far, the young Brazilian leads his experienced teammate 11:9 (the qualifying, sprint and race duels of the 2025 Formula 1 season). In the Grands Prix, the duel between the two Sauber drivers is currently tied at 10:10, although, as already mentioned, it is Hülkenberg who has scored significantly more World Championship points with 41:19.
Looking at the qualifying duels between the two Sauber drivers this season, it is striking that Bortoleto was the faster driver seven times in a row in the summer: from the Austrian weekend in Spielberg up to and including the Azerbaijan weekend in Baku. Since then, however, it has been Hülkenberg who has won the qualifying duel three times in a row.
“I just pulled myself together,” is Hülkenberg’s own explanation for his recent upward trend in qualifying. “I think sometimes you have positive momentum or just momentum. And sometimes you don’t.”
“The summer phase was obviously a difficult one for me,” says the German, “but we just kept going, kept working, kept fighting. I think the feeling and the relationship with the car are probably a little better now than they were in the summer. And that’s probably the result of that process.”
From his wealth of experience, which for him in Formula 1 dates back to the 2010 season, Hülkenberg knows: “It just depends on how well you can adapt yourself and your driving style to changes.”
This weekend, Bortoleto’s home race is on the agenda in the form of the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo. But Hülkenberg also has a strong connection to Brazil, as it was in Sao Paulo exactly 15 years ago, when he was a rookie, that he sensationally achieved his first (and so far only) Formula 1 pole position.
Hülkenberg and Bortoleto get along well in the Sauber team. Both have long been confirmed for 2026, when the team will officially compete as an Audi works team.
