Gabriel Bortoleto finished the Sprint race in 13th position and faced difficulties in the qualifying session for the Formula 1 Chinese GP, ending Q2 in 16th. Despite the lower-than-expected results, the young driver highlighted improvements in the car’s performance compared to the previous day.
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“Today the car behaved quite decently and I think we took some good steps in the right direction compared to yesterday. The Sprint was relatively smooth for me. I managed to stay in the fight for a bit, but the Safety Car didn’t make things easy; anyway, our focus was already on the qualifying session,” he commented.
The Brazilian explained that his attempt to extract more performance at the end of Q2 resulted in a mistake: “At the end of Q2, I was trying to extract a bit more lap time and probably pushed too hard on entry. I lost the rear and, by the time I recovered it, it was already too late, so I ended up spinning. It probably would have been difficult to reach Q3 anyway, the lap was good, but not enough for that,” he added.
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Despite the setback, Bortoleto maintains a positive outlook for the main race: “It’s not the starting position I would like, but tomorrow is a different story. We will start from where we are, focus on our pace and try to make some overtakes,” the Brazilian driver concluded.
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