McLaren are prepared to reach a “solution” with Sauber should the team offer McLaren junior Gabriel Bortoleto a place on the 2025 F1 grid. Sauber is the only non-Red Bull team on the grid that hasn’t confirmed its full line-up for next season despite being one of the first to begin the process when they signed Nico Hulkenberg in April. Six months later he’s still waiting to hear who will be his new team-mate.
Although it was thought that Valtteri Bottas was leading the running, his talks reportedly stalled over salary and duration with Mick Schumacher coming to the fore. However, it’s now being reported that Bortoleto as well as Williams’ junior Franco Colapinto are also still in the conversation. Colapinto has already shown the F1 paddock what he can do, twice scoring in his four starts for Williams, while Bortoleto is on his way to making it back-to-back titles.
He won the 2023 Formula 3 title and currently sits P1 in the Formula 2 standings with two rounds remaining. McLaren CEO Zak Brown says the Woking team won’t stand in the 20-year-old’s way should Sauber offer him a race seat “He’s a great racing driver,” Brown told the media in Austin. “Right now, our priority is to help him win the Formula 2 championship.
So that’s what we’re very much focused on. “We don’t have an open seat. We’re very happy, obviously, with our two Grand Prix drivers, and we would never want to hold a racing driver back in his career.
So we’ll kind of see how th.
