Gabriel Bortoleto reveals Max Verstappen instruction: 'Don’t fucking do that!'

Gabriel Bortoleto has revealed that a discussion during dinner with Max Verstappen changed his strategy opinion ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix.

The duo are known to share a friendship, with the rookie often leaning on four-time champion Verstappen for advice.

This included for the race in Mexico, where Verstappen and Bortoleto started fifth and 16th respectively.

Bortoleto originally planned to start the race on the soft compound in the hope of making up some early ground, but was persuaded otherwise by Verstappen.

“We went to have dinner the night before Mexico, and I came up with the idea in my mind I wanted to start on the soft,” Bortoleto told the Pelas Pistas podcast.

“And I was like, 'I want to start on the soft, because, you know, softer compound, I want to make some moves in Turn 1' 

“And then he [Verstappen] was like, ‘don’t fucking do that! You're going to cook the tyres in five laps'.”

It resulted in a Stake engineer being mildly annoyed after preparing strategies based on Bortoleto's original plan to use the soft compound.

“My brother was with me,” Bortoleto continued. “And then I wake up the next morning, I said ‘I want to start on the medium’. [He said], ‘Why? What the fuck changed?

“Then with engineers, the same thing. I arrived, ‘I think I'll go on the medium’, the guy looked at me: ‘fuck I prepared, three hours!’

“But I said 'I had a couple of conversations'.”

Bortoleto rose to 10th place, bagging his fifth point-scoring finish of the campaign.

Verstappen revealed he thought about the discussion with Bortoleto when he was informed that most cars were starting on the soft compound.

“When I lined up and my engineer was, ‘Everybody around you is on soft',” Verstappen said.

“I’m like, ‘We are incredibly smart, or we are incredibly stupid to not understand that the soft was really good'.

“But it worked out well because at the end of the day, the longest stint had to be then on the worst tyre for most, really. 

“And we survived in the first stint to be on the worst tyre of the two. And then in the second stint, you’ve good pace, better grip, could make some moves.”