Confrontation or Ceasefire? Gabriel Bortoleto Tells What Happened in Meeting With Helmut Marko After B-Grade Driver Comment

There is nothing new about Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko being quite ruthless with young drivers and not sparing their feelings while commenting about them. Recently, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto came into the Austrian veteran’s line of fire.

Marko referred to the Brazilian as a ‘B-grade’ driver, a remark that obviously did not go down well with Bortoleto and resulted in a back-and-forth between them. The 20-year-old responded by explaining how Marko is not immune to making mistakes either.

The Sauber driver believes that while Marko has brought a lot of talent to F1, several drivers out of those have failed to stay in the sport. As for himself, Bortoleto added that he is determined to prove Marko wrong with time and make the Austrian “regret” what he said.

With Marko starting this row by making his initial remarks even before the 2025 season began, the tensions between him and Bortoleto were high until the Chinese GP weekend. However, the two seem to have sorted out their differences after a meeting in Shanghai, per F1 journalist Mariana Becker.

“Gabriel said that the meeting with Helmut Marko was something sociable,” Becker said. “No probing, just clearing the way”. While this does draw a line on the verbal tussle between the two, people in the F1 community will still continue their discourse, looking to take shots at the ruthless Marko.

F1 journalist Mariana Becker reveals what happened in the meeting between #bortoleto and Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko pic.twitter.com/Coz3z6M5dm

— Vidit Dhawan (@dhawan_vidit) April 3, 2025

After spotting Marko and Bortoleto have a discussion, F1 fans on social media made all kinds of speculations. Some believe that Marko may have upgraded Bortoleto to an A-level driver after watching Liam Lawson underperform with Red Bull.

Meanwhile, some others on Reddit wondered who the members of Bortoleto’s entourage were. One claimed that the person in white pants was Albert Resclosa, who is the co-founder of A14—Fernando Alonso’s driver management firm that manages Bortoleto—and is also in charge of contracts and negotiations.

So apparently Helmut Marko and Gabriel Bortoleto were spotted talking after the race in China
byu/Neatto69 informula1

While there is no clarity on why Bortoleto and Marko met other than the update provided by Becker, it seems fair to say that things seem to have calmed down between them. None of them have made any negative remarks about each other since the Chinese GP weekend.