Bortoleto pants Hulkenberg on stage in front of thousands at Circuit of the Americas

Gabriel Bortoleto ambushed his Audi team-mate Nico Hulkenberg in front of thousands of fans at the Circuit of the Americas on Friday, grabbing the German’s trousers from behind and yanking them down as the pair walked out onto the stage during the United States Grand Prix weekend.

The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter, and Hulkenberg — to his credit — took the moment well, grinning as he pulled his clothes back into place. Video of the incident spread rapidly across social media in the hours that followed.

The light-hearted moment offered some welcome relief for Bortoleto, who faces a difficult Sunday. Audi exceeded his power unit component allocation ahead of the race, meaning the Brazilian will start from the back of the grid.

Bortoleto and Hulkenberg have been paired together since 2025, when the team still competed under the Sauber name, and have developed one of the more relaxed partnerships on the grid. The transition to full Audi branding has not yet translated into results, however — the outfit sits eighth in the constructors’ championship on 23 points, with Hulkenberg contributing 13 and Bortoleto 10.

Speaking on Thursday, Bortoleto acknowledged the team’s reliability struggles while striking a cautiously optimistic tone. “I have seen lots of improvement on reliability,” he said. “I think we had one [issue] in Singapore obviously, that we believe we found the reason of. It was obviously something not ideal to happen, but at the same time it happened when I was not really fighting at the front, so made me a little bit less upset about it.”

The 20-year-old added that he hoped the team could complete the remainder of the season without further major setbacks. “I hope we are able to do the rest of the season without having any major issue and that we are able to just complete the races and qualifying in the best condition and the best car possible out there that we can drive and extract everything from it.”