How Formula 1 rookie Guanyu Zhou assesses his performance so far for Alfa Romeo and where he still sees room for improvement after four Grands Prix so far
A point in his first Formula 1 race, but since then Guanyu Zhou has been waiting for another top-10 finish. However, the Chinese racer from Team Alfa Romeo thinks he has “pretty clearly” identified what has been holding him back from new points finishes so far, namely “maybe qualifying”, according to himself.
Formula One statistics reinforce this assumption: in four qualifying sessions so far, Zhou has looked significantly worse than Alfa Romeo team-mate Valtteri Bottas. He was closest in Jeddah, just 0.415 seconds off the pace. The closest was at the opener in Sachir with a gap of 1.826 seconds. And where Bottas started in the top 10 three times, Zhou always finished from 13th to 15th.
However, Zhou says he has made “a definite improvement” since his debut in Formula One, which did not materialise in the result at Imola because there “the red flag in Q2 ruined my best chance of a fast lap”.
“It’s getting better and better though,” says Zhou. “I know quite well what areas I still need to do. I just have to take the experience with me and be better next time.”
The Chinese also took a lot of “positives” from the Grand Prix in Imola, he said. “Not much happened in the race. But when there was no traffic, I was able to manage the tyres well. It is also good that we have improved in adapting to the weather conditions.”
In general, Alfa Romeo should be satisfied with the latest race weekend. Because: “Our update seems to be very promising. So yes, we are confident,” says Zhou. Moreover, the cooperation with Bottas is “really good”.
