The deal has been sealed: Gabriel Bortoleto has clinched the 2023 F3 drivers’ championship. The Brazilian rookie took the title on Friday at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza after six months of hard work and consistent point-scoring on track, becoming the first South American driver crowned champion in the third-tier series on the F1 support bill.

By Daniele Spadi

At the end of a disrupted qualifying session brought to an end 10 minutes early by teammate Oliver Goethe’s crash, Bortoleto was fifth but was crowned champion as his rivals failed to take the pole position necessary to remain in title contention.

“Excited” would be an understatement for his emotions after qualifying.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” he says in a post-session press conference. “For sure, I haven’t realised how big this is yet – I think I won’t realise it for something like a week! It’s already a dream coming true for me. Especially in a rookie season, it’s very, very special.”

The Brazilian could have clinched the title at the previous round at Spa, but a scoreless weekend for the championship leader ensured that the fight for the F3 crown would go all the way to the final round in Monza.

But in reality, it seemed only a matter of time before the 18-year-old won the title. Bortoleto could be crowned champion right after qualifying provided that neither Paul Aron nor Pepe Martí were to take home the two additional points for pole.

Bortoleto was a race winner in every single-seater series in which he competed since he stepped up from karts in 2020, but he had never before strung together a proper title challenge.

Fifth in Italian F4 in 2020 with Prema preceded a difficult rookie season with FA Racing by MP in the FRECA in 2021, but a switch to R-ace GP for 2022 yielded wins in a partial season in Formula Regional Asia and his main FRECA campaign.

He opened the latter championship with a series of points finishes, but it was after a breakthrough win at Spa – albeit one earned after a post-race penalty for Hadrien David – that F3 teams really took notice. Less than two months later, and just a few days after topping 2022 F3 post-season testing at Jerez with Trident, he became the first driver confirmed for a 2023 F3 seat by signing for the Italian team full time.

“Before the season, I had some good results, but [I was] never a champion in FRECA or wherever,” Bortoleto acknowledges. “For Trident to trust me, giving me the seat this season and pushing to make me a champion, it was very impressive and something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

A season to remember

Despite not scoring in the Bahrain sprint race, Bortoleto left the opening round on top of the standings after his feature race win.

“I led the first test I did in Formula 3. So after that and also Bahrain, I knew that we could have been competitive,” he says. “I was sure that we could have been competitive and finish in the top five, top three. In a rookie season, that’s very good.”

Pole position and a second feature race win in Australia – which he considers one of his best performances of the season – saw him extend his championship lead to 20 points. And while Bortoleto never took another race win in 2023, 10 consecutive points finishes in the next five rounds helped him increase his lead as his rivals took points off one another during the season.

Partway through that run of results came Silverstone, the sixth round of the championship. It was there that, Bortoleto says, he realised the championship could be his.

“It was not one of my best race weekends,” he says. “I did a very good sprint race where I finished P2, but then my feature race was not so good. I finished P6. But still, I went out of that round, I think, around 30 points ahead. In that moment, there were just three rounds left, and I was like ‘Okay, if I do my job and I don’t make any crazy mistakes, we can easily go to Monza already with the title or fighting for it in the last round.’”

Bortoleto hesitates before answering that question, but there is no uncertainty in his confidence on track. Another second place in the sprint and seventh in the feature at Budapest got him up to 144 points, and even though he failed to score at Spa, the 38-point gap to Aron meant that the fight for the title was academic entering the season finale.  

An invaluable mentor

Though Bortoleto is not part of an F1 driver academy as of this weekend, the Trident driver is a member of A14 Management, a programme created by two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso focused on driver management and development.

Bortoleto was born on 14 October 2004, just before Alonso completed his third season in F1. Over the following two seasons, the Spaniard would go from being a rising star held back by inferior machinery to the driver who ended Michael Schumacher’s five-year reign atop the drivers’ standings.

Alonso’s 2005 and 2006 title campaigns and near-misses in 2007, 2010 and 2012 cemented him as a towering figure in the sport’s history. Now in the twilight of his F1 career, Alonso spends part of his time outside of Aston Martin F1 guiding young drivers, among them Bortoleto, who hope for similarly glittering careers.

“Fernando is a Formula 1 legend and not only in Formula 1,” Bortoleto says. “He has driven in a lot of categories and won in all of them. He’s not just my manager but also an idol for me because since I was very young, Fernando has been the guy who was winning races in my dream category – which is Formula 1.”

Joining A14 at the end of last year marked a reunion of sorts for Bortoleto, whose 2021 FRECA season also took place under the auspices of Alonso’s FA Racing outfit. This time around, the Spaniard’s involvement in his career has been more direct.

“Now having him as my manager and giving me some tips, especially before Bahrain and Melbourne, even Monaco, it was something very special to me. For sure, he has been a big part of what I’ve done this season,” Bortoleto says.

“There were moments like leading the championship after Melbourne, when I’d won my second feature race in a row. I remember he sent me a voice message of almost 10 minutes on WhatsApp.

“He told me a lot of great stuff, but he kept in my mind that I could have won other races in the year and the moment that I started to struggle – because at some point probably I would struggle in the season or not be winning, but in the top five – I needed to accept that and get the points that I needed.

“I think that was my mindset the whole season because it came directly from him, and when a guy like Fernando tells you something, I think you better listen!”

A historic moment – again

Winning the title on the Friday of a race weekend, with still two races ahead, may seem highly unusual, but it is not unprecedented.

To long-time junior single-seater fans, there are unmistakable parallels between Bortoleto’s title-winning campaign and that of Alex Lynn in the 2014 GP3 Series, the predecessor championship to F3.

Both drivers were rookies entering the fifth season of their respective series, and both won the first two feature races of their respective nine-round campaigns. Consistent results kept them above the rest of the chasing pack entering the respective season finales.

With 48 points still on offer entering the 2014 season finale at Abu Dhabi, Lynn had a 47-point lead over Dean Stoneman and a 48-point lead over Marvin Kirchhöfer, who would have lost out to Lynn on countback had the two tied.

With 39 points still on offer entering the 2023 season finale at Monza, Bortoleto had a 38-point lead over Aron and a 39-point lead over Martí, who would have won over Bortoleto on countback had the two tied.

Both championships were decided on the Friday when the challengers failed to take pole position, and both Carlin’s Lynn and Trident’s Bortoleto became the first GP3 or F3 drivers’ champions for their respective teams.

Carlin, helped by Lynn, went on to clinch the 2014 GP3 teams’ title by 17 points in the final race of the year. Trident, who are 23 points behind long-standing F3 rivals and defending champions Prema, have a tougher path to a double title, but the possibility is helping keep their lead driver focused.

“It will not be hard [to stay focused], I think,” Bortoleto tells Feeder Series. “For sure, the emotions are growing every time I think about it. But I need to focus, and it’s good practice for me to forget this until Sunday.

“Still, the goal is to win the teams’ championship. It’s not easy, but it’s still possible. Tomorrow, we will be full on it for the race, and then Sunday once again for the feature race.”

At what is effectively his home round – Bortoleto has lived in Italy since the age of 12 – F3’s newest champion hopes to bow out of the series on a high.

“I want to win more than ever, to be honest! It’s not because I won the championship that I’m relaxed right now. I’m not; I’m fully focused on tomorrow and Sunday. I want to finish the year like I started, winning the feature race.

“Qualifying was not the best, but that’s it. Sometimes you cannot put it in the top three, but I still managed to secure a top five, and it’s good enough to race in Monza – even to win. Who knows.”

Header photo credit: Trident Racing