Gabriel Bortoleto took his second Formula 2 pole of the season in a dramatic session at Imola. After the session, the Invicta driver spoke to Feeder Series and other selected media at a press conference.

By Martin Lloyd

It has been a mixed start to the season for Bortoleto. Having won the Formula 3 Championship in 2023, he qualified second at the opening round in Bahrain. This was upgraded to a debut pole for the feature race when Bortoleto’s teammate, Kush Maini, was disqualified for a car infringement. Unfortunately for the Brazilian, he was unable to capitalise after receiving a 10-second penalty for a Turn 1 collision with Isack Hadjar that eliminated the Frenchman from the race.

Ultimately, Bortoleto finished fifth, adding this to a sixth-place finish in the sprint. Nevertheless, an opportunity for greater points was missed. Having joined the McLaren Driver Development programme in October, he feels that the Woking squad has helped him to improve since his disappointment in Sakhir and the subsequent rounds in Jeddah and Melbourne, where he failed to score.

“I’ve been trying stuff since my first pole in the year, especially with McLaren. They’ve been helping me a lot. I can say a few names here: Angel, everyone from the simulator, Jose, Steph, Andrea, Zak, everyone. They have been supporting me a lot and helping me to get back into the position that we deserve to be in.”

The names mentioned by Bortoleto include the very upper echelons of the McLaren operation. Zak Brown and Andrea Stella work at the top of the Formula 1 team, while Jose Manuel Lopez García was recently assigned to the Driver Development programme. All have clearly been accelerating Bortoleto’s development as a driver.  

Bortoleto enjoyed a strong Friday at Imola. After finishing just seven-hundredths of a second behind Hitech’s Paul Aron in practice, he qualified five-hundredths clear of second-placed Ollie Bearman in the final classification. Bearman qualified second but was briefly relegated to 16^th after his lap time was deleted for a track limits violation before a late reinstatement saved any blushes. Bearman’s teammate, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, experienced a similar situation in which his lap time was deleted, dropping him to 18^th, however, his lap was later reinstated and the Mercedes junior now starts from fourth on the grid for the feature race. There were no such issues for Bortoleto, who was pleased with Invicta’s qualifying pace.

“Our car can qualify, so we have been working a lot, on a lot of things that I cannot mention specifically, that have been paying off. I was very happy with the result today, but it’s a consequence of all the work we’ve done in two months (since the last round in Melbourne).”

Hadjar qualified third, with Joshua Dürksen rounding out the top five in fifth place – a surprising result for the newly rebranded AIX Racing. This represented the team’s best result, in its various guises, since Enzo Fittipaldi qualified second with Charouz at Hungary in 2022.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency