Gabriel Bortoleto experienced an emotional roller coaster on the first day of the Japanese Grand Prix in Formula 1 this Friday (27). With consistent pace in free practice 1, he faced reliability issues in the second session.
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In the first activity of the day at Suzuka, the Audi driver managed to run part of the 60 minutes inside the top-10 and finished with the 11th time on the board. However, in FP2 a mechanical problem took him out for most of the session, running only in the final minutes – he still managed to set the 16th fastest time.
Evaluating his participation on the first day of Formula 1 in Japan, the driver lamented the issue, but was able to see the positive side of gathering important information for the weekend.
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“It was a rather mixed Friday. The morning session went very smoothly, but we identified a problem right at the start of FP2 and opted to do a preventive gearbox change, as the quickest way to get back on track. That meant losing some time in the pits, but the team did an incredible job fixing the car and getting me back on track for the end of the session – I would like to thank everyone very much for the effort and hard work”, he said.
“We still managed to get some laps in and gather useful information, so we’ll use that as a starting point to continue evolving, with one final free practice session tomorrow before qualifying”, he added.
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