Gabriel Bortoleto experienced a weekend of highs and lows at the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula 1. Even with the numerous issues faced in the sixth round of 2026, the driver finished 11th and managed to highlight both positives and negatives.
On the streets of Monte Carlo, Audi showed strong pace in the free practice sessions. However, in qualifying, the Brazilian ended up suffering an accident and hitting the guardrail, failing to reach Q2 and only securing 16th on the starting grid.
But even before heading to the grid formation, his car stalled on exiting the pit lane, forcing him to start from the boxes. In the end, with crashes, retirements, and penalties, he still finished just outside the points. Looking back, he spoke about the positives and negatives of F1 in Monaco.
“The negative, let’s put it this way, is that we didn’t score any points. The positive is that we had incredible pace. In all the free practice sessions, FP1, FP2, FP3, we were inside the top 10. I need to take responsibility for the qualifying. And in the race, when I received the blue flag from Piastri at a certain point, I gave him a three-second gap, and dictated my own pace,” he noted.
“I caught him with the same tire life, opened a gap to the car behind who was Pierre Gasly. So the pace was there. We were all running with the same tire wear; it’s just that I wasn’t realistically in that position,” he concluded.
