Gabriel Bortoleto finished the 2026 Italian GP of Formula 1 in 11th position this Sunday (6), in Monza. The Brazilian from Audi dropped to 18th after the race restart but managed to recover positions throughout the race. However, he revealed that the team would hardly have the pace to keep up with the Racing Bulls, who showed superior performance throughout the race.
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Bortoleto explained that Audi’s performance limitations were already expected for the weekend, mainly due to engine deficiency. In addition, the Brazilian again mentioned the difficulties at the starts, which ended up having an important impact on the final result:
“To be honest, I don’t know if we could have caught the Racing Bulls anyway. We knew they had a much better pace than ours from the start. As I said at the beginning of the week, it wasn’t going to be easy. We have an engine deficiency, a starting deficiency that I won’t keep repeating every weekend for you, as you must be tired of hearing it,” he said.
Gabriel also explained that he performed exactly the same procedure at both starts but had completely different results: “At the first start I did the procedure exactly the same as the second. The first was okay and the second I lost about five positions. And that’s it, there’s nothing to do. I had to recover everything and I managed to pass everyone,” he said.
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Despite the recovery, Bortoleto revealed that the loss at the restart ended up being decisive. When he managed to surpass the opponents ahead of him, the Brazilian was already eight seconds behind Yuki Tsunoda, from Racing Bulls, and did not have enough time to catch the rival. “But I was already eight seconds behind Yuki (Tsunoda). It was hard to catch him. That’s it, go to next week and hope for the best,” he concluded.
This is the third consecutive race that Bortoleto finishes outside the points zone this season.
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