For a country that once treated Formula One like a second religion, Brazil's absence from the grid had begun to feel strangely normal.

Between the days of Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa, Brazil regularly churned out F1 champions and race winners. Grand Prix Sundays were national events, as Interlagos became a cathedral of noise and emotion. The idea that the country might one day have no driver on the grid seemed absurd.

Yet by 2018, for the first time since 1969, Brazil had disappeared from F1 entirely.

The drought lasted seven years, save for a couple of stand-in drives for Pietro Fittipaldi in 2020. Then Gabriel Bortoleto arrived.

Now in his second season in the sport, the young Brazilian finds himself juggling the dual role of promising prospect and national standard bearer.

That expectation is heightened by the path that brought him to F1. Bortoleto won the Formula Three and Formula Two titles in successive seasons, placing him in rarefied company and marking him out as one of the sport's most closely watched young drivers.

"It's a big responsibility," he said. "Brazil has had great drivers in F1. For me it's about starting my career now and hopefully fighting for wins and championships in the future, and making my country proud in a sport where they have been so successful in the past."

Bortoleto is realistic about where he stands today. An encouraging season-opener in Melbourne for the nascent Audi team led to a ninth-place finish, but the victories Brazil once expected every season are still a distant ambition.

Still, even the mere presence of a Brazilian driver on the grid carries symbolic weight. In a country where Senna remains a near-mythological figure three decades after his death, any new arrival inevitably becomes part of a story much larger than themselves. Bortoleto grew up in that shadow, even if he never saw Senna race.

"My idol was always Senna," he said. "Obviously, I wasn't lucky enough to watch him race, because I was born ten years after he died, but there are so many videos and interviews you can learn from."

Like many Brazilian drivers of his generation, his early inspirations came through a mixture of history and proximity. While Senna has long been written into legend, Barrichello and Massa were the drivers he could actually watch, and the examples that made the dream feel real.

"They were always references," Bortoleto said. "Any Formula One driver is a reference when you're in karting. You look at them and think, they're in the best series available and you want to be like them."

Massa in particular offered occasional advice during Bortoleto's junior career — an informal thread linking generations of Brazilian racers.

"Felipe and I have been in touch for a few years. He was very helpful at many moments of my career with advice."