Gabriel Bortoleto will be Nico Hülkenberg’s teammate at Sauber in 2025 – Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou are thus saying goodbye to Formula 1.
The Swiss Sauber team sent out three press releases on Wednesday morning. The first, which went out at 9:00 a.m. CET, stated that they would announce the driver pairing for 2025 and beyond. However, neither the first nor the second release revealed who the second driver alongside Nico Hülkenberg would be.
Instead, the first two stages of the communication were used to announce the departures of the existing regular drivers: Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou. This is not too surprising. In the past few weeks, it had already been leaked that the two would have no future at Sauber or Audi, respectively.
The new Hülkenberg teammate was then only confirmed in a third press release at 9:45 a.m. He is Gabriel Bortoleto, currently leading the Formula 2 standings ahead of Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar. Bortoleto is 20 years young, comes from Brazil and is managed by Fernando Alonso.
In 2023, he won the Formula 3 with Trident. Now he is on the verge of conquering the Formula 2 championship with Invicta as well. Promotion to Formula 1 is the next logical step for the young talent, who thanks the Sauber team for the great opportunity.
“Gabriel has already proven in the junior categories that he has everything it takes to be a race winner,” says Sauber CEO Mattia Binotto. ”Nico and Gabriel represent the ideal combination of experience and youth, putting us in a strong position for the future.”
Audi boss Gernot Döllner says that the Bortoleto signing underlines Audi’s “long-term strategy” and commitment to its Formula One involvement. This is an important secondary message at a time when many are speculating, due to the economic crisis at Volkswagen AG, that Audi could pull the plug before 2026 after all.
Döllner seems to be satisfied with the choice of driver for 2025: “We are currently experiencing a generational change in Formula One. Young drivers are coming and immediately making their mark. And with Gabriel Bortoleto, we have now secured one of these talents.”
The fact that the confirmation, which has been in the air for weeks, took so long could also have something to do with his previous sporting home. This is because Bortoleto was a McLaren junior, and the first step between McLaren and Sauber/Audi was to negotiate what the release conditions might look like. No details are currently known.
For Bottas and Zhou, this probably means the end of their racing careers in Formula 1. All the other regular cockpits for 2025 have already been taken, and Red Bull is not interested in Bottas and Zhou. This is particularly disappointing for Bottas, who was runner-up in the world championships in 2019 and 2020 (driving for Mercedes). Just a few weeks ago, Swiss media had already written him down as the second driver in the Sauber.
“A situation like this,” he says, “is never easy, for anyone. But after all the good and in-depth discussions we have had over the past few weeks, we have realized that the conditions to make this project grow are not met.”
Or, as Binotto puts it: “After open and constructive discussions, we jointly decided that the final conditions did not match, so we agreed to go our separate ways. But for Valtteri, the door in Hinwil will always be open.”
The Finn, who joined Sauber from Mercedes at the end of 2021, was “the epitome of professionalism,” Binotto praises, and “contributed to the team’s development with his vast experience. His dedication and approach were invaluable during an important period in our history, and the memories of those years will last for a long time.”
But apparently not enough for further cooperation. However, Binotto confirms that Bottas was “undoubtedly a key candidate” for the possible driver pairing for the next few years, because: “With his fighting spirit, he regularly pushed the car beyond its performance limits. But a decision had to be made.”
The case for Zhou was clearer than it was for Bottas, with his highlight mentioned in the press release as taking part in the home Grand Prix in China in 2024. “I am grateful to the team for giving me an opportunity in Formula One,” he says in farewell. It is currently unclear where the Chinese driver’s future may lie.
