Bortoleto vs Hulkenberg

Nico Hulkenberg was the hero of the last round at Silverstone as he finally ended his 239-race wait for his first podium finish.

Those who watched his rookie performance 15 years ago would surely not have thought at the time it would take him so long to stand on the rostrum at a grand prix.

But today Hulkenberg’s team mate Gabriel Bortoleto deserves to be regarded as one of the most impressive rookie prospects of the year. He may have only reached the points places once, but he shows the hallmarks of a fundamentally fast driver constrained by his lack of experience.

Sauber’s car is new to both drivers (Hulkenberg’s single season driving for the team over a decade ago notwithstanding) and both have had to adapt to it. The team was unfancied at the start of the season having ended last year at the bottom of the points table having mustered just one points finish all year.

However the team is making progress with its car and Bortoleto is increasingly drawing more from it over a single lap than his highly experienced team mate. The pair are tied in their qualifying battle so far this year but the trend is in Bortoleto’s favour: He’s 6-2 up over the last eight rounds and Hulkenberg took those two wins by mere hundredths of a second.

Naturally, Hulkenberg’s experience stands him in good stead for the races, where he has performed some giant-killing feats. Sixth place in Spain, passing Lewis Hamilton on a set of fresher tyres, was impressive enough to begin with.

But then came the delirious high of Silverstone. While Bortoleto and others risked starting on slicks (the rookie crashed out early on), Hulkenberg stayed on intermediates and picked exactly the right moment to take a fresh set, putting him on course for a debut rostrum appearance which will live long in the memory.

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Those feats have overshadowed Bortoleto’s achievements and put daylight between them in the points standings. He took his only points finish in Austria with a strong drive to eighth after an excellent qualifying performance.

Bortoleto’s trajectory indicates more days like that may lie ahead. In the meantime, in Hulkenberg he has an excellent team mate to learn from.

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Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Negative value: Bortoleto was faster; Positive value: Hulkenberg was faster

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