{"id":459711,"date":"2025-09-29T06:11:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T06:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/459711\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T06:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T06:11:13","slug":"how-sauber-is-responding-to-hulkenbergs-poor-f1-qualifying-record-vs-bortoleto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/459711\/","title":{"rendered":"How Sauber is responding to Hulkenberg’s poor F1 qualifying record vs Bortoleto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sauber<\/a> boss Jonathan Wheatley has dismissed any concerns over Nico Hulkenberg<\/a> being regularly beaten by rookie Formula 1 team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> in qualifying.<\/p>\n

Bortoleto has a 13-7 record over Hulkenberg this year, 11-6 without sprints, in what has been an impressive campaign for the reigning F2 champion who has five Q3 appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The numbers can of course be used to slate Hulkenberg rather than praise Bortoleto, but Wheatley is dismissing that given the 38-year-old has had a solid season in his own right.<\/p>\n

Hulkenberg finally broke his F1 podium duck with third at this year\u2019s British Grand Prix and is 10th in the championship, eight spots above Bortoleto with 19 more points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, when asked if there are any concerns over the qualifying record, Wheatley said: \u201cIt’s a question that I’m being asked more and more often now. I personally don’t feel there’s any fundamental issue here, I personally don’t.<\/p>\n

\u201cNico is a tremendously experienced and fast racing driver. Many, many times he’s been out-qualified by thousands, hundreds. It’s not always a big thing.<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan <\/p>\n

Jonathan Wheatley, Team Principal of Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber in the Team Principals Press Conference<\/p>\n

Photo by: Bryn Lennon \/ Formula 1 \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spend a lot of time talking about how Nico had never been on the podium. We’ve done that now. I honestly think it’s just a transient thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cGabriel’s fast as well. If one of them gets the lap right, one of them is going to out-qualify the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Gabriel’s certainly been at a run of circuits where he’s more familiar with. With Nico, I don’t think there’s anything big to get over, he’ll just string it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Circuit familiarisation has certainly been key for Bortoleto, who has outqualified Hulkenberg for the last eight races in a run that has spanned Austria, Britain, Belgium, Hungary, Netherlands, Italy and Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

All of these circuits were on the F2 calendar during the Brazilian\u2019s title-winning year, so the 20-year-old has impressively built his way throughout the campaign after a relatively slow start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has therefore turned a lot of heads even if he hasn\u2019t always been rewarded with a high-scoring result, and Bortoleto\u2019s reaction to bad days is what stands out to his boss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Gabriel <\/p>\n

Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andy Hone\/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s wise beyond his years,\u201d added Wheatley, after Bortoleto finished 15th in Zandvoort last month. \u201cHe handled the debrief brilliantly. After a very frustrating race, again, the way he’s developing, I couldn’t ask for more as a team principal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s doing everything that you’d want from a young driver, showing incredible maturity. And when the car’s capable of it, he delivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov and Stuart Codling<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sauber boss Jonathan Wheatley has dismissed any concerns over Nico Hulkenberg being regularly beaten by rookie Formula 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[145534,145535,4199,707,4200,10710,154041,12646,4858,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-459711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-azerbaijan-gp","9":"tag-baku-city-circuit","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-gabriel-bortoleto","14":"tag-how-sauber-is-responding-to-hulkenbergs-poor-f1-qualifying-record-vs-bortoleto","15":"tag-nico-hulkenberg","16":"tag-sauber","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115286107203668023","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}