As many of Sauber’s rivals complain of a small working window with their F1 2025 cars, Gabriel Bortoleto says his C45 may as well have “no window” because it is that “small”.

Neither Bortoleto nor Nico Hulkenberg made it out of Q1 at the Bahrain Grand Prix, although the latter was a late exit having contest Q2 before he learned that the lap time that got him through into the second session had been deleted due to a track limit violation.

Can Gabriel Bortoleto score his first points in Bahrain?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

As such, the team-mates will line up 16th and 18th on the Sakhir grid, with Hulkenberg ahead of his rookie team-mate.

Having scored points in the opening race of the season when Hulkenberg was seventh in a wet Australian Grand Prix, the German scoring more points on his return to the team than they managed all of last season, Sauber have not scored since.

They’ve dropped to ninth in the Constructors’ Championship, only ahead of the point-less Alpine team, who have Pierre Gasly lining up fourth in Bahrain.

F1 2025: The season’s winners and losers

👉 The results of the F1 2025 championship

👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings

The Frenchman is hoping to score his team’s first points of the F1 2025 championship while Bortoleto doubts Sauber will make it into the top ten.

“I’m not expecting anything more than what we have done today, to be honest,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com. “With our pace, we cannot fight points right now.

“There is no window. The window is so, so small, and it’s almost impossible.

“Like FP2, we managed to get it into the window, but you cannot rely on such a small window. We need to work to get a more predictable and more constant balance.”

But it is not just Bortoleto who is feeling a bit frustrated, Hulkenberg conceding it will be difficult to work his way into the top ten from P16.

“I think it’s tricky,” he said of his prospects of scoring points.

“I think there are a lot of cars who have similar or slightly faster pace. I still believe we are a little bit on the back foot.

“But you never know, we’ll give it our all.

“It’s a big tyre deg race war and hopefully we come out okay.”

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