With just one race – the Yas Marina feature race – left in the 2024 FIA Formula 2 Championship season, Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto leads Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar in the Drivers’ Championship standings by a mere 4.5 points. Coming into the weekend, Bortoleto saw his lead in the standings drop to only 0.5 points after Hadjar claimed P2 in the Qatar Feature Race. Bortoleto finished that race P3.
Bortoleto “excited” for Sunday’s “very interesting” Yas Marina feature race.
While speaking with the media during Saturday’s post-sprint press conference, Bortoleto, who worked his way up to P2 from a P9 starting position, described his performance in Yas Marina as “very good”. He explained that he had had good pace throughout the race, and was confident going into Sunday’s feature race. He noted that he would face fierce competition from title rival Hadjar, set to start the race in P4, and Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Paul Aron, set to start the race in P3.
“Very good. Starting P9 and finishing P2 is very good. We had good pace as well so that makes me very confident for tomorrow as well where I start P2. It’s going to be very interesting, I am excited to see what we can do tomorrow in the race. We know that Paul is starting just behind me and Isack is P4 for let’s see what we can do.”
Hadjar to start P3 after Aron penalised for breach of technical regualtions
After this press conference, however, the Stewards announced that Aron had stripped of his P3 starting position. Following an investigation, the Stewards deemed his team, Hitech Pulse-Eight, as having deliberately breached Article 1.5.2 of the FIA Formula 2 Technical Regulations. This was an additional punishment imposed due to the “seriousness and nature of the offence.” The standard penalty, which Aron also received, saw the Estonian driver disqualified from the sprint race. Aron will now start Sunday’s feature race from the pitlane, with Hadjar moving up a place to P3. Bortoleto’s starting position remains unchanged.
Bortoleto was “just trying to avoid crashing” during opening laps of Yas Marina sprint
Despite a chaotic opening lap, Bortoleto, who started the race from P9, soon made his way up to P2, settling behind Martí before Lap 10. When asked for his perspective on those laps, Bortoletoc stated that he had just tried to avoid crashing and to overtake when possible. He added that everything has run “perfectly” and expressed relief to have avoided the collision between ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins and Rodin Motorsport’s Ritomo Miyata.
“I was just trying to avoid crashing to be honest.”
“In T1 I saw a lot of smoke coming out just in front of me. I tried to avoid it and to overtake people when I could. Everything ran perfectly.”
“I went to the outside in the chicane and Martins got hit by Myiata maybe I don’t know. It was positive, not that he crashed, but that I didn’t get hit by him. It was super close, I was side by side. It’s a shame for him because I heard he had good pace too.”
Martí showed that he can “win a race” – Bortoleto
The Brazilian driver also congratuated Campos Racing’s Josep Maria “Pepe” Martí who took his maiden F2 win at the Yas Marina Circuit. Bortoleto described Martí as a “fast driver” and said that he had shown his potential during the race.
“Happy, congrats to Pepe for his first win. It hasn’t been easy for him this season, but I think he is a fast driver, and he showed today that he can keep up a very good pace and win a race. Congrats.”
Starting ahead of Hadjar “very positive” for Bortoleto’s championship fight
When asked if his performance in the sprint, compared to Hadjar, has exceeded his expectations, Bortoleto said that he had known that he would have had to “make something extra happen” to keep his lead in the championship fight.
“He started in front of me so normally I would expect, in a normal and similar paced race, we would have been more or less in the same positions or going forward but he would still be ahead if I didn’t make something extra happen today. But I am very happy that we did.”
He added that he was happy to be leading the championship going into the final race of the season, and described starting ahead of Hadjar as a positive sign for his championship fight.
“Good to be leading the Championship going to the last race of the year, starting ahead so it is very positive.”
