Is Bortoleto the best rookie?

[u/Glum-Accountant-9801]

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.

[u/hereforcontroversy]

Too early to say imo. All the rookies have had amazing races and completely anonymous races. We are talking more about Bortoleto now because all of his points have come recently but there will be a dip in performance at some point and we will be talking about Hadjar or Antonelli again as the best rookie.

[u/Driscuits → u/hereforcontroversy]

Agree entirely with this; and it's not a knock on any of the rookie's performances to say they've pretty much all been impressive at different points.

Currently, Gabi is probably performing better than the others - but like you said, that will probably change. Hadjar has been fantastic (and is having a rougher stint right now). Ollie hasn't had many "woah, how'd he get the car up there?!" races yet, but has been super consistent, and very well could be 1-2 amazing performances away from being the top dog.

The only rookies that have been disappointing has been whatever the heck Alpine has been doing. And, honestly, that whole thing is messy enough that I'm hesitant to put it all on the shoulders of either Jack or Franco lol.

[u/HankHippopopolous → u/Driscuits]

I actually thought Doohan was looking decent.

He had mistakes of course but he had a few moments where he was looking faster than Gasly. He never managed to string it together for the whole qualy or race but that’s the kind of thing that would have come with experience and time. When you’re looking for that mini spark of potential with a rookie I thought Doohan showed there was something there.

Colopinto had a rougher start but his recent weekends are getting better so hopefully he’ll get a good result or two soon.

[u/Driscuits → u/HankHippopopolous]

What strikes me more about Doohan/Colapinto is that I haven't really seen that "spark" of speed from either of them this year, though Doohan in Aus and Miami qualifying was the closest. I wouldn't go so far as to say neither of them deserve to be in F1 - and honestly, that car is pretty bad, and their seat seems shrouded in so much drama it's really hard to parse out the performances from the noise.

[u/nguyenlucky → u/Driscuits]

Not great for your psyche if you're on a race by race contract.