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Fernando Alonso isn't just shaping his own Formula 1 career, but he, his management group and his former team McLaren are busy trying to start another driver's grand prix prospects.
Gabriel Bortoleto has burst onto the F1 driver market as a surprise contender for the final 'open' 2025 seat at Sauber, given Red Bull appears to have a straight choice between its drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson for the vacant RB drive.
Incumbent Valtteri Bottas remains the favourite for the Sauber slot, but McLaren junior and new F2 points leader Bortoleto is emerging as an important player in the market.
The Race Brazil's Lito Cavalcanti sat down with Bortoleto to find out about the role of Alonso in his career, where he stands with McLaren, his rookie F2 title challenge and of course, his chances of making it onto the F1 grid.
McLaren's unique approach
Bortoleto is responsible for an unlikely third Alonso-McLaren partnership, having joined Alonso's A14 driver management stable in late 2022 as a 16-year-old before earning McLaren's backing one year later.
He joined McLaren's newly reformed young driver programme shortly after winning the Formula 3 title last year, a career breakthrough for a driver whose results in Formula 4 and Formula Regional were very solid but not standout.
Bortoleto has represented McLaren well in F2 this year, winning two feature races and taking the lead of the championship in Baku with just two rounds of the season remaining.
He credits McLaren's approach to young driver development as key to his impressive year.
"One of the reasons I say McLaren is one of the best junior teams is because of how they develop their drivers," Bortoleto tells The Race.
"They don't just invest money in your career - they help you grow. Many junior teams only provide funding and put pressure on you, but they don't follow you day-to-day or care about anything other than results.
"To be honest, McLaren is different to the approach many of them take. They made it very clear that there was no pressure on me to deliver results this year. They didn't set any goals or say, 'If you don’t finish in the top five, you're out'. None of that.
"The only target was my development. They wanted to see how much I improved over the year, how capable I was of evolving as a driver and a person."
The start of Bortoleto's F2 season was shaky. After a starring debut in Bahrain where he earned pole on debut, something only Charles Leclerc has managed of the F2 drivers who've graduated to F1, there were back-to-back point-less weekends in Jeddah and Melbourne.
"I put pressure on myself - I wanted to deliver like I had in Formula 3," explains Bortoleto, referencing the F3 title he clinched last year.
"At that point [early in 2024], I was 12th in the standings, and I knew I was representing a major brand like McLaren. I expressed my feelings to them, and they reassured me that they were happy with my performance because they knew most of the issues I had were beyond my control.
"They could see my progress on track - my speed, my race pace - so they were pleased. When I realised that, I took the pressure off myself. I could focus solely on improving in the areas I could control, and for things out of my hands, there was nothing I could do.
"That's when things really started to click for me this year. I got into the car feeling happy and excited to push, whether it was for a qualifying lap or a new tyre run. I wasn't worried about whether I'd finish first, second, or third - I just wanted to get the most out of the car.
"That mindset shift was something that really changed for me this year, and McLaren played a big role in that."
F1 'debut'
Bortoleto got his first taste of a McLaren F1 car when he got behind the wheel of McLaren’s MCL36 from 2022 at the Red Bull Ring earlier this month.
He called it a "completely unreal" experience and said a "whole movie played in my head" such were the emotions of a life-long dream coming true.
Spearheading McLaren's testing programme is Jose Manuel Lopez Garcia, a former performance engineer for Lando Norris whom McLaren signed from Haas, with which Garcia began his F1 career in 2016.
Garcia has been a key figure in Bortoleto's development over the last year.
"He's extremely close to me, teaches me a lot, and is always with me on the radio, even though he can't speak much," Bortoleto explained.
"He advises me on how to communicate better with my engineer to extract the best possible performance during qualifying or similar situations.
"He's there to report on my development as a McLaren driver and also to help with any relevant information. Sometimes, things from Formula 1 filter down, like, 'F1 cars are struggling with front tyre grip, so this might happen in F2 as well'.
"He's someone I can share my feelings with, what I'm going through, and he helps me process things."
His F1 future
Clearly, Bortoleto won't be racing for McLaren full-time in F1 anytime soon with both Norris and Oscar Piastri tied down on multi-year deals lasting until the end of 2026 at least.
Bortoleto "expects to have a long-term relationship" with McLaren but ultimately Alonso's management team will decide where his future lies.
So could he be loaned out elsewhere on the grid to get his F1 chance? Sauber has a yet unclaimed vacancy alongside Nico Hulkenberg that Bortoleto has been linked to.
"A lot of things get reported in the media, I see it and I follow it, as my name is being mentioned quite a bit," Bortoleto said.
"What I can say, and this is the truth, is that without results, your name doesn't get mentioned. Without results, you won't be considered for a Formula 1 seat. So, my main focus has always been on doing well in Formula 2.
"I have an incredible management team behind me, led by one of the greatest drivers of all time, and they're handling everything for me.
"They'll come to me when there's something concrete about my future, and they'll present the options to me.
“Right now, there are possibilities, but I try not to get too involved. Maybe now that I have a two-month break [in his F2 season] until Qatar, I'll get more involved because I'll have more time. But up until now, I've been focused solely on Formula 2."
And would McLaren stand in the way of Bortoleto making his debut elsewhere?
"[McLaren team boss] Andrea Stella and the people from McLaren want to see me in F1 someday," Bortoleto replies.
"But I really don't know. It's not something I'm focused on. This is between them and my manager, they will decide my future together. They know what is best for my career."
Stella was asked that same question in Baku, saying "if Binotto came to me, when you have such a talent, definitely you're not going to stop him having a chance in Formula 1".
"At the same time, we will be definitely interested in finding a way to keep him in the McLaren family, because I think he's a talent that in the future, could be important for McLaren.
"We are safe for the long term with our two drivers. We couldn't be any happier. But definitely, we would like to keep him in the McLaren family. But I'm sure we could find a solution."
Don't go taking social media photos of Sauber/Audi F1 boss Mattia Binotto and Bortoleto talking at Monza as evidence of anything either: "That was a five-second conversation! That's very funny. I just said 'Hi' because I was on the grid doing interviews with Brazilian TV."
Even if Bottas keeps the Sauber seat out of Bortoleto's reach, there could be an expanded testing programme with McLaren or elsewhere that would improve Bortoleto's case for landing a race seat in 2026.
That's testament to just how impressive Bortoleto has been on F1's undercard this year.
The only true F2 rookie?
At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, during a glowing appraisal of Bortoleto in the FIA press conference, Alonso was quick to suggest that Bortoleto is the only true F2 rookie this year in a field that contains F2 debutants like 2025 Mercedes F1 driver Kimi Antonelli.
"A lot of people don't realise this because it's not something we make public, but 90% - actually, no - 100% of the rookies in Formula 2 this year, except for me, did a lot of testing in GP2 cars," Bortoleto explained.
"People in the industry know this because we're aware of where everyone's testing. Some drivers are even heading to Qatar [where F2 races next] to train, just to give you an idea. It's not something I’ll have the chance to do because it's very expensive to bring a car over there and all that.
"I’ve only ever done official sessions - I've never done private testing. I think that's what Fernando was getting at.
"Obviously, when you do extra testing, it gives you a huge advantage. When you get to practice in a new car before the official sessions, you arrive much better prepared. But it's something that costs a lot of money, and it wasn't in our budget, so I couldn't do it.
"It was the same in Formula 3. If I remember correctly, I did two or three private days before the season started.
"Some drivers did 20 to 25 days of GP2 or Formula 2 testing this year before the season even began."
That makes Bortoleto's rookie F2 season with Invicta Racing all the more impressive. Should he convert his points lead into the title, he'd join an elite group of drivers including Leclerc, George Russell and Piastri as those to have won GP3/F3 and F2 titles in successive years.
🚥 LIGHTS OUT
— Formula 2 (@Formula2) March 23, 2024
LAP 1 / 23
CHAOS AT THE START!
Both Pepe Martí and Gabriel Bortoleto crash out before they even get to T1 😱#AusGP #F2 pic.twitter.com/o46qAzsksE
And he's done so with plenty of the mitigating factors a wild F2 season has produced for every driver, such as a driveshaft failure in Jeddah and a hydraulic failure after a start-line crash (above) in Melbourne.
But Bortoleto's raw pace has been evident from day one, comparing well to the driver he replaced in Invicta, 2025 Alpine F1 driver Jack Doohan. That pole on debut was a truly remarkable achievement.
Whether that translates to a chance in F1 like the ones given to the 2024 F2 contemporaries - Ollie Bearman, Antonelli, Franco Colapinto - he's been beating, remains to be seen.
For now, that's all in the hands of Alonso, McLaren and how Bortoleto ends his standout year.
"I trust that Fernando will make the right choices for my career, and hopefully, one day, I'll be in Formula 1," he says.
Photos courtesy of James Gasperotti and Dutch Photo Agency and XPB images
