Gabriel Bortoleto couldn’t contain his excitement as he watched Max Verstappen battle it out during the final moments of qualifying at Zandvoort.
The Sauber driver, who had already finished his own qualifying session in P13, was keeping one eye on the monitors while speaking to media in the pen.
“F****,” Bortoleto blurted out when he realized Verstappen wouldn’t be starting from the front row.
Despite three difficult practice sessions, Verstappen managed to squeeze more performance out of his RB21 than anyone expected. Throughout Q3, he was locked in a tight battle with George Russell for third place, while Bortoleto was clearly hoping his friend could snag pole position.
When told about Bortoleto’s enthusiastic support during the post-qualifying press conference, Verstappen couldn’t help but smile.
The relationship between the four-time world champion and the rookie has clearly grown beyond casual acquaintances.
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve said it before — we do some driving on the simulator,” Verstappen explained. “I think I even shared with him the track model that I use for Zandvoort. So, I’m sure that he did quite a lot of laps.”
Verstappen has been generous with his advice to the Brazilian driver, who was tackling the Dutch circuit in an F1 car for the first time.
“We naturally always speak about things and tricks and what to do in F1 because I don’t think he had driven here before in F1,” he said.
“He’s a great guy, and we get along very well. And I think, again today, he had a very good qualifying himself. So, I guess what he’s doing is working well,” Verstappen added.
The mentoring seems to be paying off for both drivers.
After securing P3 on home soil, Verstappen faced an anxious wait as stewards investigated him for driving too slowly after the session ended.
The stewards have now made their decision on the incident. You can read about it here.
