Gabriel Bortoleto won a barmy F2 feature race at Monza on Sunday, despite starting from 22nd and last. He beat polesitter Zane Maloney, with Richard Verschoor third. After the race, the top two spoke to Feeder Series alongside selected media at a press conference. 

By Martin Lloyd

After disastrously spinning in qualifying and not setting a laptime, Bortoleto had work to do. He had shown his speed in the sprint, rising from last to a remarkable joint-eighth when he crossed the finish line in a dead heat with Dennis Hauger. He started last again in the feature race, but a combination of luck and raw pace saw him through to a remarkable victory. Afterwards, he reflected on his performance.

“My confidence didn’t change after today”, said Bortoleto. “We already had the pace in the last [few] races, and qualifying was completely my fault.”

His mistake in qualifying meant that he would start last for both races, but the Brazilian was always assured of his speed. He passed seven drivers on the first lap, rising to 15th. 

When the safety car was called on Lap 8 after an incident between Hauger and Ritomo Miyata, most frontrunners had already pitted to cover the early-stopping Ollie Bearman. Bortoleto had not stopped, and so was able to take advantage of the reduced time loss from a safety car pitstop. 

He emerged in sixth, with five drivers yet to stop. Bortoleto quickly dispatched all of them, romping home to victory with a margin of 9.4 seconds over Maloney. With the victory, he has closed the gap to championship leader Isack Hadjar to 10.5 points. 

“The pace is always there,” Bortoleto added. “It’s nothing new for me, it just makes me more happy to be closer to the title now, to be fighting even closer and it’s just very exciting to see what the next rounds [will bring] for us.”

Meanwhile, Maloney was disappointed not to take the victory. Without the unluckily-timed safety car, he would have been in prime position to win. However, the race brought positives to Maloney – a slow pitstop for Hadjar left him outside the points-paying positions. Paul Aron was third in the standings ahead of the race, but was hit by Pepe Martí at the start and forced to retire. With the pair failing to score, Maloney is now third in the standings and just 30 points from Hadjar. 

“We’ve had the pace all year in the race,” said Maloney. “I’m happy to get the first pole in F2 this weekend, and that gives us a bit of confidence going into qualifying in the next few rounds. I’ve always been confident in the races, and now a bit more confident in qualifying.” 

“It’s really tight, we’re all very fast. The one guy I expected to gain points on this weekend was Gabriel, and I lost points to him!”

Behind Bortoleto and Maloney was Verschoor, who rose through the field with Bortoleto having started 19th. F1-bound Kimi Antonelli finished fourth, ahead of AIX’s Joshua Dürksen, even though the Paraguayan took several trips through various run-off areas. ART’s Victor Martins was sixth ahead of Ollie Bearman, with Rafael Villagomez finishing eighth to take his best result of the season. Jak Crawford was ninth, with Enzo Fittipaldi rounding out the points-scorers in tenth.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency