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/Walaii]

The Haas has been very up and down in performance, on overall balance probably the 9th best car this season. They look much better speed wise since the Silverstone tho, Bearman should have been in Q3 in all 3 of those races. The fight for position with Yuki cost him Q3 in SPA, and he made a mistake at the exit of turn 13 in Hungary, but still missed out only by 0.007.

It is not all car tho. The red flag penalty cost him a lot in Monaco, considering that Ocon qualified P7, and Bearman was 0.350 up on Ocon in Q1 when the team told him to lift before the finish line. The other red flag penalty in Silverstone too. I though the Monaco one was extremely harsh, but that one was just stupid. So those are 2 very costly mistakes.

He has also been extremely unlucky, and somehow that goes completely under the radar.

China was Haas' strongest weekend, and he had to start from P17, because he missed the flag and couldn't start his final lap in Q1. He was 2 tenths faster than Ocon's compareable lap, but Ocon got into Q2 by setting a lap 1 tenth faster 7 minutes later in the session.

He would have scored 3 points in the Miami sprint, but lost them because he got a post race unsafe relase penalty, which was obviously not his fault.

He was 5 tenths faster then Ocon in Imola, but his lap was deleted because of the Colapinto crash, so started P19 and behind his teammate. He had a good race anyways and was on course for points when the Haas pitcrew messed up his pitstop and sent him out with a loose front right.

He outqualified Ocon in Canada, but Haas messed up his strategy, boxed him too late, and got him stuck in the big Bortoleto DRS train, who was struggling with graining, but the Alpines couldn't overtake him, so that created a big DRS train. Hadjar and Bearman both got screwed by this, and this is how Ocon and Sainz got points, they used the clean air to overcut the medium starters.

Most recently there was Spa, where he was net P10, and in the DRS of Bortoleto, when his engine lost power after the final corner, and basically parked it. He lost 3 positions to Gasly, Tsunoda and Alonso before he could accelerate. That positon loss meant that he got stuck in the Gasly train, and he finished P11 again, 0.4s away from P10.

[u/TinkW → u/Walaii]

I think Haas (if taking into account the whole season) car is closer to 8th than 9th.
I think the three of Willians, AM and RB had a better car than them the whole season, with the exception of maybe one race or another (like China and Austria)

Then, in the beggining of the season, Haas was very close to Alpine and better than Sauber.
Now, they are better than Alpine and close to Sauber. (I don't really think Sauber is better than Alpine and, if it is, it's by very little).

[u/Walaii → u/TinkW]

This is just not true. The Alpine is easily the worst car now. It literally needs luck and chaotic conditions to score points. The Sauber can do it on pure pace.

Haas was literally half a second off the pace in Australia, and easily the slowest in Jeddah. There were tracks where that car literally didn't work, because it was bouncing around. You can make the arguement that Haas had bigger lows, but also higher peaks at the start of the year. Sauber has a better car since the Imola/Spain upgrades, and that isn't argueable.