How Antonelli and Bortoleto impressed in their F1 debut races

In at the deep end - and it rained enough in Melbourne to fill that end of the pool. Formula 1's current batch of rookie drivers were truly dropped in it for their debuts (or near-debuts) as the rain lashed at southern Australia's coastline, rendering a circuit already difficult for newcomers to master an even more gruelling challenge. Painted lines, errant gravel, and Helmut Marko's antediluvian views on crying were all hazards that at least one of F1's less experienced drivers had to navigate.

Of the 'true' rookies yet to make a start before Australia, only one (Andrea Kimi Antonelli) survived to the flag; the second (Gabriel Bortoleto) was a mid-race retiree, and the third (Isack Hadjar) was out on the formation lap. You've got to feel for Hadjar, who had been otherwise impressive until that point with his run to 11th on the grid; in a sweet moment, Lewis Hamilton's father Anthony provided a supporting shoulder and a few bon mots to lift the Franco-Algerian's mood after the Turn 2 crash.

Hadjar shouldn't be burdened with too much blame either; even Carlos Sainz got caught out by a sudden burst of torque at the rear over a painted line that ensured he was little more than a passenger when his car careered into the wall. What it does mean is that we can't really do any meaningful analysis into the Racing Bulls driver's debut, other than him being anywhere been 0.2-0.3 seconds shy of Yuki Tsunoda on pace at this moment.

Yet, there's enough to comb through Antonelli's debut run, and also enough to examine Bortoleto's afternoon before he was caught out by the rain and hurled his Sauber into the wall before Turn 13. There are similar strands in both, in that the pair not only impressed through the weekend (albeit also enduring minor moments of misfortune) but also showed glimmers of pace that matched their more experienced team-mates in George Russell and Nico Hulkenberg respectively.

Antonelli: A genuine diamond in the rough

Antonelli was the clear star of the rookies on race day

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

There are two ways to look at Antonelli's debut run in Australia: either through extrapolating the headline result of fourth and considering it worthy of exaltation, or from the qualifying over-reach that led to his Q1 elimination and a languid spin at Turn 4 that very nearly took him out of the running.

The truth, as ever, sits between the two standpoints. Capturing fourth (once his wrongfully applied penalty for an unsafe release was sensibly rescinded) on debut, particularly in the wet-dry-wet conditions around Albert Park, was an absolutely laudable result. At the same time, the bib damage that culminated in his relegation in the opening stage of qualifying - at the hands of Bortoleto, no less - was entirely of his own making. Without that, he'd easily have made it to Q3 and saved himself a recovery effort on Sunday.

And, while his drive was very good in tricky conditions and represents an excellent starting point to base his F1 career upon, the lap 16 spin at the Lakeside Stadium's car park threatened to undo his lap 14 pass on Hulkenberg. Helpfully, Antonelli quickly made amends and rounded the Sauber driver on the 17th tour for a second time. Finishing fourth was testament to Antonelli's ability to keep the car on the road as conditions worsened, but it also owed a lot to the timing of his stop for intermediates.

This all being said, the real benchmark of Antonelli's debut is in his comparison to Russell. Now in his seventh season, the Briton has shown himself to be a match for a seven-time world champion and a driver whose talent surpasses the 'mere' three races he's won in F1 so far. Accolades aside, matching Russell would ensure any driver deserved to be considered among the cream of the crop.

There are mitigating factors, in that Antonelli spent much of the green-flag running behind other cars - even if they were a few seconds down the road; Russell, for his part, was scarcely affected by the dirty air from the two McLarens and Max Verstappen. For the purposes of comparison, we'll overlay their race lap times from the opening stint on intermediates, prior to the slick-tyre switch point enforced by Fernando Alonso's lap 32 shunt.

The comparable race lap times of Antonelli and Russell

Photo by: Autosport

The opening laps of Antonelli's stint on intermediates overlaid with Russell's rather demonstrates the effect of traffic; the young Italian was stuck behind Hulkenberg in those early laps and within a second of the German; thus, the fluctuation in times is either dependent on the Sauber driver's laps or the effect of turbulent air.

Thus, the most comparable laps to Russell's are limited - but all laps where the two are incredibly close were registered when Antonelli ran in clean air. After the lap 16 spin and the second pass on Hulkenberg, Antonelli reeled off a string of laps that not only got close to Russell's pace, but briefly surpassed it. This needs to be contextualised slightly, and there was more reason for the 18-year-old to push as he gave chase to Lance Stroll. Russell was on his own, and had little reason to throw caution to the wind to chase Verstappen.

Stroll was dispatched swiftly on lap 22, as noted on the above graph. Antonelli subsequently got back on terms with Russell's overall pace, albeit a smidgen down, before the lap times started to rise again when he began to catch Alonso's dirty air. The lap 26-27-28 drop is explained by Antonelli getting to within a second, but his pace got better when he dropped over a second behind and had to deal with less of the Spaniard's draft.

There are moments where Antonelli can legitimately match Russell for pace and, in their hard-tyre FP2 stints, the Bologna-born teen demonstrated that from the get-go. In his first race, he has already shown that he has an impressive baseline to work from and, so long as Mercedes keeps him grounded, he'll continue to get even better.

As Antonelli has never raced in Shanghai before, we have an opportunity to observe how quickly he can get acquainted with the layout outside of the safe environs of the simulator, and how he scales up to Russell in dry conditions. He has to start with an error-free qualifying first.

Bortoleto: Diligent racer can already become a match for Hulkenberg

Before his crash, Bortoleto was proving a match for Hulkenberg

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Like Antonelli, Bortoleto has been to Albert Park before with F2 - although the Brazilian endured a fraught weekend Down Under during his title-winning campaign last year.

This year's visit marked Bortoleto's first ever appearance on the F1 entry list, having never even participated in an F1 practice session before his debut. And, when you consider the thousands of kilometres of TPC (testing of previous cars) running that the likes of Antonelli, Jack Doohan, and co have received versus Bortoleto's relatively sparse experience of F1 machinery, the Paulista is painted in an even more favourable light.

Given the evident deficiencies of the current Sauber C45, even if the car is in far better shape compared to last year's as the team has already exceeded its points total, Bortoleto impressed with his composure in qualifying to bump Antonelli into the bottom five at the death of Q1.

He made an error on his final Q2 lap, one that precluded him from improving upon 15th on the grid; Bortoleto carried too much speed through Turn 4 and ran wide - or, as he put it, was "skateboarding" the exit kerb and cost himself time. Had he repeated his Q1 lap, he'd have at least qualified 14th.

Outqualifying Hulkenberg, who is generally considered to be one of the better performers on a Saturday, is no mean feat. What's more impressive is if you overlay the duo's lap times on the opening intermediate stint. In short, their race pace was incredibly close.

Having beaten Hulkenberg in qualifying, Bortoleto's race pace was periodically faster too

Photo by: Autosport

There's significantly more overlap in the Sauber drivers' lap-vs-lap graph than that of the two Mercedes drivers; neither driver was ever quicker than the other for more than three consecutive laps. Assuming we know where Hulkenberg is as a driver, one who was perhaps considered as one of the top 10 performers over 2024 as he scooped up a handful of big pay-days for Haas, then one can surmise that Bortoleto is a pretty swift pedaller and has acclimatised well to the demands of F1.

The key difference between them - between battle-hardened experience and youthful exuberance - was (stating the obvious here) that Bortoleto crashed in the race and Hulkenberg did not. Even though Hulkenberg has the same level of experience as Bortoleto in driving the C45, experience of damp/wet races in F1 offers something more to lean on. Consider that Hulkenberg has a pre-existing idea of how the car is going to react in certain circumstances, and the reflexes to deal with those situations; Bortoleto doesn't have that mental repository of information yet.

If he continues to prove himself against Hulkenberg and impresses further, then he'll get there. Technical director James Key was "massively impressed" by the rookie driver's weekend, and there's no reason why he can't develop into Brazil's great hope for the future.

The caveat to all of the above is that this is only one race; no scientist or statistician would dare predict a trend based on a sample set of one. What we can see is that we have two drivers who have acquitted themselves well to F1, despite their wildly varying levels of preparation over 2024. It's an encouraging start for both drivers, even with a smattering of incidents.

Were they flawless? Absolutely not - but who would expect that from a rookie?

The Brazilian didn't ultimately deliver on his rookie promise but the signs were encouraging from Bortoleto in Australia

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images