The race weekend format is just the timetable of events before the main race. It includes sessions like practice and qualifying, and changing it can affect how teams and drivers prepare.
A reverse grid is when the starting order is flipped around. Instead of the fastest cars starting first, the order is rearranged so it can be harder for the front-runners and easier for others to fight for position.
Monaco is where Formula 1 races on a narrow street track with walls right next to the cars. Because it’s so tight, driving there feels intense and unforgiving.
A Formula 1 car is a purpose-built open-wheel race car designed for extremely high downforce and grip at speed. Compared with most cars, it relies heavily on aerodynamics and precise tires to stay stable through corners—especially on tracks like Monaco.
“Reliability issues” means the car isn’t working consistently—something might break or act up. In racing, that can ruin your chances even if the car is fast.
Term
Q3
In F1 qualifying, Q3 is the last and fastest part of the session. If your car reaches Q3, it means you’re among the quickest in that qualifying session.
The chassis is the main frame of the race car. If they say it’s strong in certain corners, it means the car feels stable and grips well through those turns.
These are turns where you don’t slow down much—you’re going faster through the corner. The car has to stay stable and keep traction at speed, so teams judge how it performs in those conditions.
The gearbox is the part that helps the car choose the right gear for the speed you’re going. If it’s damaged, it can take a lot of work to fix during a race weekend.
"Open testing" means teams had more freedom to run cars and practice outside of the race weekends. The idea is they could spend more time learning the car and improving it.
In Formula One, "power unit" means the whole high-tech engine system that powers the car. It’s more than just an engine—it's a combined setup that also recovers and reuses energy.
They’re talking about how, back then, engines weren’t expected to last long. So teams might swap engines multiple times in a single day, which shows how different reliability and rules are now.
LIVE
Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt, Tommy and Gabi Portoletto.
Thank you for joining us here in Monaco.
What a backdrop.
How are you doing, my friend?
Doing good.
Wow.
Hasn't been the cleanest day for me today, unfortunately.
We were having a very strong weekend, you know, top 10 all the sessions and then I crashed
into, like, I touched the wall in T10 and ended up breaking the suspension, so quietly
end over.
By the time this goes out, you would have scored points tomorrow.
Don't worry.
It's all good.
It's all happiness from here.
We're not going to reflect on T10.
Don't worry.
Okay, so we've got some questions from fans and ourselves.
The first one is, do you see videos and memes people make about you online?
How online are you?
I see, yes.
I see quite a few.
I enjoy, you know, the funny ones.
Obviously, there are some of them that are not funny.
But I must say, I like watching.
At the end of the day, I'm Gen Z, you know, they say.
So I spend a bit of time on TikTok, Instagram.
I don't do much, to be honest, but, you know, before I go to sleep, I open TikTok and I see
a few memes and I'm laughing all over the place.
What's the weirdest one you've seen?
No, there was one actually funny this day.
I even commented on the video because, you know, I was, I think it was Miami that I want
to jump, like when we finish the race, you need to stop the car, obviously, like in the
park for me.
And then you need to jump out of the car.
And then when I went, like, I look up and then I went over the halo because it's not
easy to leave a Formula One car.
It's quite complex.
You don't want to hit the carbon pieces because each of them cost like hundreds of thousands.
So you need to be very careful.
So I step in the halo.
I look up, there was no one.
When I look down, put my feet there and I jump again.
I jump into a mechanic and then I fall.
And then recently, I started just sitting in the halo and then I just move my legs to
the other side.
So it's much safer and I don't risk any damage to my body.
And then someone made like, that was a day where, and then a funny music behind and me
jumping and falling.
And nowadays, me just chilling.
So you're thinking about the TikToks when you get out now and knowing that.
I cannot reach that level.
We have four.
We've asked this to every driver that we've spoken to and it can be as silly or as serious
as you like.
What's the one, if you could change one rule in Formula One, what would it be?
I don't know, actually, you know, like Formula One keeps evolving and doing different stuff.
It's different.
I don't think I would change anything.
Probably just maybe change a bit the format of the race weekends, make something different,
you know, not that I don't like what I have now, but maybe, you know, making it a bit
less time in FB and straight away quality or some stuff like this, like this, we need
to push.
No, we spend Thursday and then Friday and then we arrive on Saturday only to do a qualifying.
Sometimes takes a bit too long.
How do you feel about reverse grids?
We've had that previously.
People have said, you know...
I don't like that.
No, no, because I feel like you should have only one Grand Prix, one race.
And then, if you do a reverse grids, you know, even if you're shitting Kuali, literally,
you're going to be good in the reverse grid.
And then, you know, we have, we had this in F2 and F3, but I couldn't, I never want to
sprint race, but even when you finish in the podium, you don't feel good unless you start
from the back and you finish on the podium.
But when you finish on the podium, starting like quite ahead, it means that you did a very
bad job in Kuali.
Yeah.
Okay, no reverse grids.
That's what we've heard.
So we're here in Monaco.
I'd love to get your sort of feelings and emotions the first time you drove a Formula
1 car around here, because like, you know, we've driven on the F1 game and that's scary
enough.
How would you describe how you felt the first time you went around here in an F1 car?
Well, it's extremely quick.
It's, you know, the walls are getting closer and closer through the weekends.
Unfortunately, I saw one of them very closely today.
Hey, we're not talking about today.
It's the first time.
Yeah, but it feels like always the first time when you're jumping this track, man.
It's crazy.
Like, the emotions, the feeling, the speed in the corners.
It's amazing.
We'll move on to happier things.
What's the...
Could you tell us the funniest thing that's happened when you've had a gaming session
with Max Verstappen, or like a funny moment that you can remember when you were gaming
with Max?
I mean, one of them, he rages a lot when he's gaming.
So I always have so much laughs when he does something stupid and I just laugh so much.
Or when we are playing sim and we decide just to race each other quite aggressively.
And then if someone pushes each other out and then in the next breaking point, the other
guy doesn't break.
And then it's so funny to see the frustration there.
I love it.
I love that even F1 drivers do that.
Oh yeah, we do the most.
I love hitting people in the sim.
Now, talking about a wholesome thing here, it was a question from Kiwi Maloni.
It says, Gabby, can you share a sweet memory from your childhood?
It can be to do with racing or not.
A great memory from my childhood?
Yeah, sweet memory from your childhood.
I don't know, being with my family, everyone having dinner together or lunch, breakfast
in the morning.
Long time I am not able to do that with them, unfortunately.
Because I live here, I'm a lucky guy to live here, but in the sense they live in Brazil
and we don't see each other very often anymore as we used to do in the past.
And then I really enjoy that simple moments together, but they were the nicest ones.
Awesome.
This one's from Cori 07.
What era of Formula 1 would you most like to have raced in if it wasn't this one?
Good question.
I think the 2007, 2006 cars were amazing.
I really liked that one.
They were small, the engines were very loud.
When I joined F1, it's still rocket ships to drive, even faster cars than back in the
time, but they are bigger.
The engines have a little bit, like the volume is not so loud as they used to be.
I mean, at least to try, you know, I would like to try.
Yeah.
Are they kind of the era you were watching and aspiring to be a Formula 1 driver, that
kind of era?
Well, I watch videos of Senna.
I was not alive, I was 10 years after he died, I was born.
But yeah, Senna for me was always my idol and he's the greatest of all time, so I take
him as an inspiration.
I was going to say, in terms of obviously legendary, like Brazil have such an amazing
history in Formula 1, is it like a help or hindrance or like, do you feel the pressure
like representing Brazil or is it just something you're incredibly proud of to, you know, there's
a lot, there was quite a while before we saw like a Brazilian back in Formula 1 and that
to like us, it's strange to not have a Brazilian driving Formula 1 until you came back of course.
Do you feel the kind of pressure and the expectation from, you know, being representing
such a kind of legendary nation of F1?
I feel the pressure because I put the pressure on myself, that's the reason why I feel it.
Because I believe if you are doing a sport like we are and you don't feel pressure or
you are not in love with what you do or you're not supposed to be a Formula 1 driver, I feel
like everyone here, it's constantly under pressure unless they achieved so much already
that they can just live with the results from the past.
But in my case, you know, I'm a young guy, I still have a lot to prove to myself, to
the world, to Brazil and I feel like, yeah, Brazil has built so many great champions and
I want to be one of them.
So I still have a lot to do better and improve.
I think I'm doing a decent job right now, but it's still making some mistakes and then
I still need to clean them up and then I will be able to collect my price.
Absolutely.
Now this is a very important question as there's about a thousand bottles going into a bin
right now.
Our Bailey 150 says, let's settle it once and for all, what is the correct way of pronouncing
your name?
Because we hear all kinds of different versions of your first and last name.
Gabriel Bortoleto, that's how you say in Portuguese.
But I like how they say out so out, I like Gabriel Bortoleto or Gabriel Bortoleto.
So you're happy, you don't mind?
Man, I don't care really, like, whatever, call me, it's not going to change anything
unless they call me João, you know, completely different name, then yes, but they're trying
to guess it, it's not an easy name.
No, it's not easy.
Awesome.
Can you tell us about being teammates with Nico, obviously a very experienced driver.
You've seen some great things online of like, you took obviously your very different paths
of your kind of Formula One career.
How's it been having like Nico as a teammate?
It's great, Nico is a nice guy, you know, we enjoy working together.
We work both very hard and, you know, I feel like we push each other in the right direction
always.
So yeah, it's a guy I am very close to also outside of the track.
I try to keep the contact and it's nice.
Do you remember the first time you met him?
Well, yeah, I do actually.
I didn't know who I was, yeah, that was in F2 and I knew I was possibly going to be his
teammate in the future, but he didn't know probably.
So I passed to him and I actually waved and he didn't wave back, so I was like, oh, what
a superstar.
But then after I just saw he was a cool guy.
Did you bring that up to him when you met him?
I told him, yeah.
But if you know Nico, you know he wouldn't give a s*** because he'd be like, ah, shut
up, man.
What an excellent way to end this interview, Gaby.
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Best stuff tomorrow.
Thank you guys.
Enjoy.
All right, we have said goodbye to Gaby Bortoletto and we're saying hello to Alan McNish.
Alan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
For those that don't know, can you just give a little bit of a line about what you do,
where you've come from, because of course you've been involved in Formula One and motorsport
for a very long time?
Yeah.
I'm the racing director of the Audi Revolut F1 team and effectively it means that I'm
in charge of everything here at the race.
Principally it's all of the racing operations being in terms of how we run the car, the
drivers, management of that, but also touching to all of our VIP guests and, well, the communications
as well.
And so therefore there's quite a wider area of touch points.
And as you say, I've been involved in this sport since one way or another, 1981, when
I started karting as a wee boy up in the north of Scotland.
How is it that obviously you represented Audi at Le Mans, very legendary partnership that
you had together and amazing memories now working without even seeing them come into
Formula One?
How has that been?
Yeah, you're right.
You know, Audi had such a tradition at Le Mans, actually, and it made a lot of our drivers'
careers in a way.
And so Tom Christensen's here this weekend as well, someone that I spent many hours driving
around that place in the last hour, which is next weekend as it turns out.
So I'm missing it.
I'm in Barcelona, but I've already got the live stream sorted out.
But I think the principles of the way we go racing is exactly the same.
It's with a clear direction, end goal being winning, but with the knowledge that actually
it takes time to do that.
It takes time to build the infrastructure of the team and also against the competition.
And so having seen this particular program right from the beginning from day one and
how it's grown because I've been involved in it with different roles as well in the
background of that, then I'm fully invested and fully invested into it.
But at the same time as well, pretty excited about the next steps because now we're live,
now we're going racing.
And all the build up over the last four and a bit years was all about to get to this point.
And this year in particular in Formula One, I found it immensely impressive the speed
that this car has been able to produce at such an early point in the partnership.
Yes, there's been some reliability issues, but you must take a lot of positives out
of this considering that round here it looked like you maybe were the fifth fastest team.
It's got to be a pretty big step in quite an early journey.
Yeah, you're right.
And it's a bit like a racing driver.
It's better to start with a fast racing driver and try and tame it down than also a fast
racing car and trying to iron out the bugs.
And we've got a quick car.
There's no question about it.
You know, Nico or Gabby have qualified up until this weekend.
Eleven's just knocking on the door of Q3.
And frankly, this weekend, I think we had the pace to get both cars in Q3, but ultimately
it didn't happen for other reasons.
But the raw speeds, I think, is there.
When we look at the chassis, medium and high speed corners, it's really, really strong.
And so, yes, we are happy with that, but we're competitive people.
So we're happy with that, but we're looking at how do we improve the areas that we need
to strengthen up on.
And that's where the focus and energy is now.
Yeah, absolutely.
Question, how does it differ working with the drivers, having one of the most experienced
drivers on the grid with Nico and then Gabby, who, of course, is trying to make his mark
in the sport?
Well, Gabby, I don't know any of the music that he listens to for goodness' sakes.
At least Nico, I can sort of half get into touch with him.
Now, both of them are very good, and they complement each other, which is really good
for us at the moment.
You know, Gabby's youthful enthusiasm, he's just starting his career.
Nico on the other side's got that width of experience.
You know, whatever you throw at him, I've been there, I've done it.
I know how to handle it, and he just gets on with it.
And we need that at the moment, as we're building the team up as well.
He gets right to the number things very, very quickly.
And the other thing is that they're not egotistical.
You know, they're very balanced people.
And I mean, I don't mean drivers, I mean people.
And that's something that I really do like about both of them.
And they're quite fun to be around.
I'm looking forward to the Scotland-Brazil match at the World Cup, but that's the one
I'm really looking forward to.
So I'm going to throw you under the bus a little bit, because we've been told that
you have some very funny stories from your kind of time in motorsport.
Could you share one with our audience now?
I have some very funny stories.
Not really sure if I could do that.
You know, Cricky, I've got Will Sandin here, he's going to be looking at me
with this sort of nervous look on his face, saying, no, do not say that one.
It's very good when you've been around this sport for so long
and you've seen so many things.
Some of them are cringe-worthy when you look back on them, to be honest with you.
The one that I shared with Gabby was actually crashing on the way to the grid
in Petit Le Mans.
And it wasn't a funny story.
It was a really frustrating story, because I shunted on the way to the grid
and I walked into the motorhome while they were repairing the car.
And Dindo Cabello, my longtime teammate, walked in all happy, saying,
everything OK.
Said, OK, have you looked at it?
The things in two pieces, the gearbox was off the back and they repaired it.
But the moral of the story was we went on and we won the race.
So, you know, it's not what happens.
It's about how you recover.
And now I can look back on it and think of it as quite funny at times.
At the time, I was kicking anything that was sort of in that front of that motorhome.
But yeah. Yeah.
Well, what a turnaround. What a turnaround.
So you raced in Formula One back in 2002.
That wasn't funny.
How crazy is it to see how much Formula One has evolved since then?
Well, in so many different ways.
Now we're talking about doing a season of 24 races
and 66 percent of those are outside of Europe.
Back then you were doing a season of 17 races of which 66 percent were within Europe.
So just the sheer workload, we had open testing then.
I think I did 45 days of testing on my own, not the teammate,
not the test drivers or anyone else.
It was just insane on these areas.
You know, we were changing engines twice per day.
And now you're looking at, you know, the power units for the whole season.
So there's been so many changes.
But the biggest single change I would say is
if you look at the grid from back to front, it's so narrow.
It's hundreds of a second that's differentiating, you know,
whether you jump into the next part of qualifying
or you're on the second or the third or the fourth row.
And that was over tens and, you know, 34 tenths of a second back then.
And the other thing is you had one or two races that were like Monaco.
One or two races that were packed out.
Now, every single race is packed out.
Every single person knows about Formula One.
And when they're coming here, they're coming here for entertainment on and off the circuit.
And that's another big change.
I would say it's all for the benefit, actually.
Yeah, we're pretty happy with how Formula One has gone as well.
It's definitely going in the right direction.
Big thanks to Alan for coming on.
Really appreciate your insight and for the funny story as well.
So thank you.
It wasn't that funny. It was painful. I can tell you.
It was a PG story.
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About this episode
Gabriel Bortoleto talks through his Monaco weekend, including a crash at Turn 10 that broke his suspension, then answers fan-style questions and gets into what he’d want from future F1 eras. Teammate and driver-dynamics themes come up alongside broader F1 debate—reverse grids, sprint formats, and how qualifying gaps and reliability shape weekends. The conversation also touches on Ayrton Senna’s influence, Monaco’s intensity, and a few entertaining sim and gaming moments.
In Monaco a few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to speak to Audi Revolut F1 driver, Gabriel Bortoleto! We chatted about how he's adjusting to life in the sport, what it's like representing the country of the great Ayrton Senna and even gaming with Max Verstappen!
Plus, we're then joined by Audi's Racing Director and former F1 driver, Allan McNish. He tells us about the intricacies of running a team that he's had so much personal success with in motorsport, and how F1 has changed over his near-three decades in the sport.
Our brand new live show 'Super Podding' is coming to the UK and Amsterdam this autumn! Get your tickets here: http:/tix.to/p1live
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