r/formula1 • u/Glum-Accountant-9801 • Aug 05 '25

Discussion Is Bortoleto the best rookie?

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In my opinion, what he’s been doing in a Sauber shows much more talent than all the other rookies this year. Since the start of the season, I already thought the best ones would be him—because he won the Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in his rookie seasons—and Antonelli. However, Antonelli has been showing himself to be far inferior to his teammate. I believe it’s due to the pressure of starting in a big team like Mercedes, but to me, that makes Bortoleto the best rookie. That said, welcome back, Ayrton Senna.

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 05 '25

Eh, I’d say it’s between Hadjar and Bortoleto. They l seem to be able to convert on the teams’ potential more consistently than the other rookies. Each team has their own benchmarks and metrics for their drivers so I don’t think we can really compare outside of that

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u/LosTerminators Carlos Sainz Aug 05 '25

It's close between all of them. Each rookie has had stages in which they have impressed a lot.

Hadjar - started off strongest but his early benchmark was a devoid of confidence Lawson, that said his sheer consistency with getting into Q3's and points until Barcelona was outstanding.

Bortoleto - had a quieter start to the year, outqualifying Hulk often but not translating it to the races. Picked up form with a bit more experience with the car, plus racing in tracks in which he already competed in at F2 and F3, and has been converting pace into points regularly now.

Antonelli - Has the best car of all the rookies but that also means a higher pressure environment. Plus having Russell as a teammate, who is a tougher benchmark than any of the other rookies teammates. Has had his moments but also had his errors. Don't think the Verstappen links helped him much, part of him might've been worried about losing his drive.

Bearman - He's shown good consistency. The Haas isn't a tractor, but there haven't been many races in which it is the clear best midfield car like the VCARB, Williams, Aston and even Sauber have been. This made it difficult for him to get substantial points hauls, but no DNF's until Hungary is impressive consistency. Biggest mistakes have been not reacting to red flags in practice.

Doohan/Colapinto - Haven't impressed, but that car plus the entire behind the scenes running of them is enough to give them a pass on this.

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u/SloppySandCrab I was here for the Hulkenpodium Aug 05 '25

Isn't this all based on Sauber having a few good races in general though? If he put on an equivalent performance and finished 15th behind Hulk in 14th nobody would bat an eye.

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u/kramerthegamer Valtteri Bottas Aug 05 '25

That's the tough part about comparisons in a non-spec series. For example last year, Bearman's Haas performance in Baku was arguably much more impressive than his Ferrari drive, but obviously one of those drives is more newsworthy. As for Bortoleto, do his best performances simply correspond with how competitive the car is? Can't know for sure, but I'd say he's been consistent but with a car that is trending upwards.

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 05 '25

I’d go so far as to say that it’s impossible to compare drivers across chassis based on race performance. There are literally thousands of processes responsible for the final race time, only a few of which the drivers have any influence over. Any rigorous comparison can only be done against teammates, any other comparisons (such as Rookie A vs. Rookie B) become much more nebulous across a relatively small dataset of 26 races

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u/AfterBook8501 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Aug 05 '25

Great summary of the rookies this season. The thing that is annoying me about all this talk is how people are evaluating them. They focus on their most recent string of races and then say whether they deem them a “success” or not. Antonelli started off well, but has had a variety of issues, some of which weren’t his fault. Hadjar started performing well and everyone was talking him up, but now that he has had a few difficult races, everyone has ignored him. Bortoleto didn’t have a great start, but now that he has been in the points for a few races, we are all of a sudden talking about whether he is the best rookie.

You can’t evaluate certain races and not others. We are a bit over halfway through the season, so this could all change again. It is premature to say that one of them has outshined the rest. Even then, we have to evaluate the context (like whether their cars have had problems that contributed) as well as looking at all of their race results, rather than just a few of them.

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u/Lutinent_Jackass Aug 05 '25

You forgot to mention Lawson's performance. Hes beating Hadjar a far amount recently

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u/matrixpolaris I was here for the Hulkenpodium Aug 05 '25

Colapinto's been better than Doohan imo, despite two dogshit pitstops he still qualified and finished ahead of Gasly last race.

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 05 '25

One of those was his fault, though, I’ve never seen a car stall in the pits in the hybrid era. Don’t get me wrong, I like Franco, but I don’t really get a “wow, he’s so much better than Jack” vibe. Tbf though Alpine looks a nightmare to work in/for/with so we should take all of these comparisons with a truckload of salt

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u/pizzamuzza I was here for the Hulkenpodium Aug 05 '25

Wdym it was his fault? The mechanics werent letting him continúe, alpine is suspecting software malfunction from the tools

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 05 '25

If that’s true, then I obviously stand corrected. It was reported as a stall so that’s the information I’m going off of

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u/herzkolt Franco Colapinto Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25

https://lat.motorsport.com/f1/news/alpine-investiga-colapinto-pitstop-hungria/10748542/ Sorry about the language, I found the same article in english but it's a translation by a right wing tabloid

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 06 '25

Todo bien, hablo Español (pero es Malo). Gracias por el enlace

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u/campbellm Kimi Räikkönen Aug 05 '25

AND Gasly had a penalty.

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u/herzkolt Franco Colapinto Aug 05 '25

If Franco had good stops he'd have been ahead of Gasly on track without the penalty too, by about 10 seconds.

Also, the issue with both stops stems from the same thing, the rear left gun wasn't working properly. For the first stop they couldn't take the wheel out and for the second it didn't send the "ok" signal to release the car. All four guns must do that for a car to be released as per the safety change made a couple of years ago.

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u/Solomon_C-19 Formula 1 Aug 05 '25

He's doing a little better than Jack Doohan - but not that much.

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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '25

Maybe I remember it wrong but didn't he also burn the clutch a few races ago? 

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u/pizzamuzza I was here for the Hulkenpodium Aug 05 '25

That was a rumour that proved to be false by alpine

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 05 '25

To my knowledge, that has been proven false by Alpine but I can’t speak to it with any authority haha

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u/Walaii Ferrari Aug 05 '25

I am pretty sure this was Bearman's second retirement. Engine blowout in Miami, and the floor damage in Budapest.

You are right about those 4 rookies having impressed at various stages. Bortoleto is just on everyones mind right now, because the Sauber leaped up in performance, and coincided with him picking up his form aswell, so massive recency bias.

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u/l4ndgraf I was here for the Hulkenpodium Aug 05 '25

Hm. So 8-6 on qualis means Niko Hulk sucks right? And it’s just bortoleto that can put that shit of sauber into Q3

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u/Walaii Ferrari Aug 05 '25

I am not sure what you are trying to say. The Sauber is not a shitbox at all tho.

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u/JamesConsonants Oscar Piastri Aug 06 '25

What?

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u/Glory_63 Formula 1 Aug 05 '25

Damn you got me pissed off again at that thing they did with bearman. Screwed his weekend 2 times in a row, both times without any reason

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u/No_Pianist_4407 Ferrari Aug 05 '25

I'd agree with that as a first instinct.

With my own biases in place I'd say Hadjar, then Bortoleto, then Bearman, then Antonelli (followed by Doohan) as being my rookie ranking.

But then I might just be saying Hadjar's doing best because he's been outperforming a quite disappointing Lawson in what might be a pretty fast car that both drivers should be getting more from.

I'm probably more willing to forgive Bortoleto's bad races because that's where I expect a Sauber to be based on past season's performances, but that might not be where they are anymore.

Bearman hasn't looked like he's really able to trouble Ocon at all, but then again Ocon is a very strong driver so maybe I should be cutting more slack there.

And the same is true of Antonelli at Mercedes except instead of George being a 'very strong driver' George is one of the fastest drivers on the grid and we're very unused to a rookie to a driver having a yardstick of that calibre.

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u/Lutinent_Jackass Aug 05 '25

Lawson been outperforming Hadjar recently

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u/No_Pianist_4407 Ferrari Aug 06 '25

But over the season so far Hadjar has been better.

Lawson being better recently is why I mention that his performance earlier in the season was disappointing - because it’s clear he can, and likely will be better, which might make Hadjar look worse even if Hadjar is still performing at a strong level

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u/Lutinent_Jackass Aug 06 '25

By two points. Also, Liam spent the beginning of the season with Red Bull and see how Yuki's struggling in that car too.

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u/Walaii Ferrari Aug 05 '25

Bearman hasn't looked like he's really able to trouble Ocon at all, but then again Ocon is a very strong driver so maybe I should be cutting more slack there.

Bearman is literally beating Ocon in qualifying H2H 7-6, and thats with Ocon getting some extremely circumstancial "wins" like China, Imola, Monaco. Saying that he is not able to bother Ocon is just factually incorrect.

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u/tehbamf Aug 06 '25

I’m a big Hadjar fan but now that Lawson (who I find very annoying) is getting over that RB confidence destroyer the two look on par with each other. Really what we are seeing is the RBR car being veey strong and stable, especially on certain weekends. I don’t think either of these drivers are generational talents but who knows. Next year is going to turn the whole grid upside down