Sauber in Las Vegas: from Hülkenberg’s 7th to Bortoleto’s first-lap disaster
The Las Vegas Grand Prix offered two completely different stories for Sauber’s drivers. While Nico Hülkenberg bounced back from qualifying disappointment to secure points, Gabriel Bortoleto turned his debut on the Nevada street circuit into a nightmare that will continue into next weekend in Qatar.
Bortoleto’s first-lap crash and penalty
At the start, the Swiss team rookie completely misjudged Turn 1, colliding with the innocent Lance Stroll, who was forced to retire due to the damage. Initially, the Race Direction immediately penalized Franco Colapinto for the incident, but after his final return to the pits, the penalty was converted into a five-place grid drop for the Qatar GP, in addition to losing 2 licence points.
“First of all, I want to apologize to Lance,” Gabriel Bortoleto admitted. “It was my fault: I got a strong start and tried to overtake the Williams on the inside, but I misjudged the braking point by a few meters, and it was already too late to slow the car properly. I went in a bit too deep, didn’t have the angle to take the corner, and ended up hitting him. It’s a shame because the weekend looked promising up to qualifying, but the first-lap mistake ruined both of our races. Now I just need to put it all together for the last two races of the season: clean laps, clean weekends, because not finishing these races means losing the track experience I should gain. I’ll learn from this, recover, and make sure I return to the performance levels I’ve shown before when we get to Doha next week.”
Hülkenberg delivers points for Sauber
Sauber’s consolation came from Nico Hülkenberg, who maintained ninth after his pit stop and crossed the line ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari. In the updated official results, the German is classified 7th, benefiting from the disqualification of both McLarens. “Today we scored another two points (six in total), and I think we can be fairly satisfied: it was probably the maximum we could achieve. Everyone ahead of us started ahead and probably had slightly better pace, so we did a great job to finish where we did. It was a clean and solid one-stop strategy in a low-degradation race with few variations, and the team did an excellent job. The first stint on hard tyres was excellent: managing it while racing closely in the opening laps required effort, but we did it well. We gained two important points for the team, and even though the championship battle is still very tight, there’s still everything to play for.” – the German driver concluded at the end of the 2025 Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
From the glitz of Vegas to the floodlit desert of Lusail in less than seven days – Sauber heads east with a bittersweet weekend behind them: points in the bag, lessons learned the hard way, and a rookie determined to hit back immediately.
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