Gabriel Bortoleto explains what he really admires about Red Bull driver Max Verstappen

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The Formula 1 grid is going to look very different in 2025 in stark contrast to last winter when all 20 drivers retained their seats heading into this season.

Logan Sargeant and Daniel Ricciardo have both since lost their places on the grid to Franco Colapinto and Liam Lawson, but already four rookies – including new Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto – have earned race seats for next year.

It means the grid will look very different with drivers who were recently the young guns in the paddock now the experienced heads.

Max Verstappen is one of those drivers and despite only being 27 years old, is likely to start the 2025 campaign as a four-time world champion.

Verstappen drove expertly at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, racing through the pack from P17 to win comfortably.

He all but ended Lando Norris’s title hopes with that result and speaking on the F1 Nation Podcast, Bortoleto shared why he loves watching the Dutchman so much.

Verstappen has won more races than any other driver in F1 history aside from Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.

The 20-year-old Brazilian will be hoping he can emulate even a fraction of his success and has picked up a few tips from watching Verstappen over the years.

New Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto raves about Red Bull driver Max Verstappen

Damon Hill asked Bortoleto which current drivers he admires and the F2 championship hopeful said: “I think from nowadays, I really like how Max drives.

“In the sense of like I really admire his qualy laps and how much he extracts from the car in these laps.

“The way he drives and races, I think it’s very nice.

READ MORE: Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend

“Obviously he can be very hard, we have seen in the last races, but obviously they are fighting for a world championship.

“So we all expect them to race each other like that, but I think I’ve always admired a bit how Max drives since I was very young because I was part of a team in go-karts that he grew up with.

“So they always told me stories about him and I was always like, okay, what would Max do in this situation and I always wanted to be a bit like him because he won every single thing he did in the junior series.”

Gabriel Bortoleto explains why Mattia Binotto wasn’t ‘sure’ about offering him an F1 deal

Bortoleto has had a rapid rise through the junior ranks and will be hoping to emulate some of F1’s best drivers by the end of the season.

The likes of Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and George Russell all won F3 and F2 in back-to-back seasons and Bortoleto is in the perfect position to do so himself.

READ MORE: Who is 2025 Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto? Everything you need to know

He sits marginally ahead of Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar with two rounds to go although the unpredictability of Formula 2 will make his job more difficult.

Bortoleto has admitted that Mattia Binotto wasn’t sure about signing him, especially when more experienced drivers such as Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu were available.

However, a wave of young talent is entering the sport off the back of Colapinto, Lawson and Oliver Bearman impressing during their recent cameos.

The Brazilian will have the fanatical support of millions of fans from his home country, who have had to wait years for one of their own to return to the F1 grid.