Bortoleto ‘didn’t see’ Alonso during close shave in Jeddah as Kick Sauber struggle to take positives from difficult weekend

Gabriel Bortoleto explained that he "didn't see" his manager Fernando Alonso during his too close for comfort moment with the Spaniard at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, on a difficult weekend for Kick Sauber.

On Lap 25, Bortoleto found himself racing in a three-way battle with Aston Martin's Alonso, and Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson. As Lawson made his way past into 15th place, the Kick Sauber driver veered right, and made minor contact with Alonso, who was steaming down the outside of the track.

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In the immediate aftermath, Alonso accused his young charge of moving under braking, something Bortoleto expanded on after the chequered flag fell in Jeddah, with the Brazilian finishing down in 18th and last of the runners.

Explaining the incident, he said: “I didn’t see him. I didn’t know that he was actually there.

“I knew there was another guy and just a guy behind me, and as soon as the guy behind me overtook, I tried to open the corner and Fernando was there.”

Speaking more broadly about the weekend, he added: “It was a big learning and also affected our tyre choice a lot for the race and Quali. We went with a strategy, my decision, to be quite aggressive in Quali because I hadn’t had many laps. I made my mistake in Quali, shame, and then didn’t have too many tyres in the race.

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“I had only one set of hards and one set of mediums, ended up using both of them and didn’t have any spare tyres to pit at the end and add some pace. I had no more tyres at the end of the race. I was completely gone.

“I need a week off just to relax and go home and rest. I need some rest, I need to recover, to reset my energies and get back to Miami in a better place than I am right now.”

On the other side of the garage, Nico Hulkenberg found it difficult to pick positives from a weekend that saw both Sauber drivers finish off the lead lap.

“I guess a clean race from everyone – not even a yellow flag apart from Lap 1," said the German assessing his weekend. "Pretty uneventful with a low-deg race. I think at the front, they all one-stopped.

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“It is like that, but it was difficult for us. Not enough speed, too much tyre deg, so definitely some work to do.

“I need to look at the race from outside but yeah, I think there was quite a big gap to the Racing Bulls and the Williams. Obviously, starting from the back doesn’t help and the strategy was a bit different to most others, but we’ll see and try again.”