Gabriel Bortoleto will start at the front of the grid for the Belgian GP of Formula 1. In qualifying this Saturday (18), the Brazilian reached Q3 and, taking advantage of penalties to Isack Hadjar and Lando Norris, lines up in eighth position on the grid.
Read more F1: Antonelli takes pole in Belgium; Bortoleto starts eighth
The Audi competitor managed to get the most out of his car throughout the weekend. In two of the three free practice sessions held at Spa-Francorchamps, he managed to place himself within the top 10 on the leaderboard.
Now, in qualifying, he repeated a good performance and in the end, set the ninth best time, but the penalties moved him up the final grid. Speaking to SporTV after the session, he celebrated that ‘everything came together’ on the track.
Read more F2: Durksen beats Stenshorne and wins Sprint in Belgium
“I even had a bet with Mattia, my boss. I don’t know if he believed it was possible to get into Q3 with the car we had this weekend. I told you before the weekend started that it would be a very difficult track for us, it still is a very difficult track for us,” he said.
“There are many straights, we suffer a lot, but, I don’t know, everything came together in qualifying. I did an incredible lap in Q2, in Q3 too, but there wasn’t much more to do there. I also got a good slipstream, which was very important for us, to try to get a bit of straight-line speed, and everything came together. Got Q3 again, so I’m very happy,” he added.
Read more F1: Norris criticizes current cars again after TL2 in Spa
