Despite signing Guanyu Zhou for the 2022 Formula One season, Alfa Romeo is struggling to land Chinese sponsors – market environment “difficult “
Formula One has its first Chinese regular driver in Guanyu Zhou, but apart from the lack of a Chinese Grand Prix, interest from Chinese sponsors currently leaves much to be desired, as Alfa Romeo team boss Frederic Vasseur confirms.
Alfa Romeo was upfront when signing Zhou that part of the attraction of signing him was that it could open the door to greater commercial opportunities in his home country.
But although the Swiss team has already signed deals with a number of Chinese companies such as SenseTime and AMX, Vasseur says things have not moved as quickly as they could have.
Vasseur: China interest “moving quite slowly “
When asked about the interest from sponsors in China following the Zhou signing, Vasseur says: “So far it has been a bit difficult. We signed with SenseTime [a deal announced on 1 July] and we had AMX in the past [announced in February]. Those are the two main sponsors we have from China.”
“Maybe it takes time, I’m convinced of that. And maybe Zhou needs to score and deliver more regularly first to attract new sponsors. But we feel, because we have a lot of contacts, that it is starting to work. But it’s quite slow,” said Vasseur.
“We have now signed our second Chinese sponsor [SenseTime] and that is a good step that I am also happy about. I know it will be a long process,” he added.
Vasseur angry at “fools” after Zhou signing
While Vasseur always insists that potential new sponsorship deals are a bonus aspect of signing Zhou, he is nevertheless annoyed with some who claimed the Chinese youngster was only chosen for the money.
“As we know, there are quite a few fools in the paddock who have little idea of our business,” he replies to accusations that Zhou was only signed because of sponsors.
“And it’s not like if you give a fool a pass, he’ll get smarter. In the end, it’s best not to talk, but to do. And that’s exactly how he approached the situation.”
“I had a discussion with Zhou when those stupid comments came up. I said, ‘Zhou, it doesn’t matter, you have to do your job. It doesn’t matter what they think and what they say today, you have to do your job and you have the full support of the team and that’s the most important thing. So just show everybody that you are capable of doing it.'”