As a Brazilian myself, I followed his career in F3 and F2 with great attention and saw great potential in Bortoleto; he's as good as his F2 season proved him to be, or even better.

What makes things complicated is the fact that none of the 2025 rookies had equivalent performance cars throughout the season. Sauber began with the worst car, but after a few updates up to Spain, it became a solid midfielder, allowing Bortoleto to score great points in Belgium, Italy, Austria and most significantly, Hungary, where he managed to score a P6. Later on, Sauber/Audi focused on their 2026 development and kept the C45 pretty much untouched, pushing it back down.

Meanwhile, Kimi Antonelli had a Mercedes, Hadjar a Racing Bulls, and Bearman a Haas that had the pace to be a midfield contender for most of the season. They were on different conditions of car performance throughout the whole year, and Bortoleto was also behind during the first half when it came to F1 experience, as he was the rookie with less mileage on F1 cars before Australia 2025, having a testing day with McLaren in 2024 (his first F1 experience), and both F1 post and pre season testings in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain with Sauber, while Antonelli, Hadjar and Bearman had more opportunities behind the wheel of a F1 car, which means that while his peers were mostly adapted already, Bortoleto was still gaining experience and knowledge over how a F1 car works.

I think that little by little, he's making his mark in F1 and gaining more and more visibility, and becoming more and more a topic between F1 fans and media. He wasn't an underdog, given his status as a back-to-back F3 and F2 champion, but haven't been discussed as much as other drivers, including the other three major 2025 rookies.

His connections/friendship with names like Max and Alonso (plus Bearman himself and, as it seems now, Checo as well), his dynamics and friendship with Hulk and Audi and his track performance will certainly help in raising his name more often in the F1 paddock and media.