Given the lack of a fight among the top teams, concentration turns to the midfield, where Zhou Guanyu’s performance stood out during the Spanish GP. The man from Shanghai crossed the line in P10, but he was promoted a position thanks to a penalty for Yuki Tsunoda who forced him off the track at turn one on lap 26.
Xevi Pujolar, Head of Trackside Engineering for Alfa Romeo, talked about Zhou Guanyu’s unexpected fight with Alpine and Aston Martin on Sunday, and how the other teams’ miscalculations on tyre strategy influenced the Chinese driver’s race.
“I think today the reason why we were fighting with all these teams and cars is because everything was very tight in the midfield.”
“The package that we introduced in Monaco for us it was working as expected. We can be a bit closer to the competition.
“But I think today in the race it was more of a result of the choice of some teams which tyres they used and which kind of management they were using. I think they put themselves in a more difficult situation and we just took advantage of it.
“For us we had two [sets of] hards and we could push more all the way, and that made this kind of opposite situation in the race.”
Despite a reasonably difficult start to the weekend for the 24-year-old according to Pujolar, he delivered a great qualifying lap to beat his teammate Valtteri Bottas by 0.3s, Zhou then was outstanding on Sunday as well, proving he has taken a step compared to 2022.
The Spanish engineer believes the Chinese star is more mature and performing at a really good level now.
“For us Zhou is much more mature this year. He has done a good job today.
“I think Friday and Saturday, probably Valtteri [Bottas] was stronger. Even with Zhou we were not sure in terms of performance on Friday and Saturday. Up to FP3 he was struggling a bit. But then on Saturday in qualifying, he was up there.
“Today in the race he has done a mega job, from lap one until the end of the last lap, fighting with Tsunoda and with everyone there. For sure he’s now at a very good level.”
Photo Credit: Alfa Romeo F1 Team
