During the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend – and in the days before Sauber publicly announced that they would not be retaining the services of Zhou Guanyu next season – the Chinese driver reflected on how difficult the year had been so far.
Whether Zhou Guanyu already knew that he would not have a seat with Sauber in 2025 is unknown but over the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend, he was asked as to how difficult the year had been so far. Seeing how he had to handle an uncompetitive car as well as operation problems and changes of personnel at the highest levels, it is clearly a year which has not gone to plan.
“Yeah, it’s definitely been, let’s say, one of the very different seasons I’ve had over the three years just because beginning of the year the car was good, we had a few occasions we could score points and then we had this pit stop massive issue and then after that we didn’t have the car performance anymore.” Zhou explained. “Then we were focused so much on making sure we fixed the issue on the pits and then delaying all the aero package where you can get a lot of performance which, is kind of the difficult factor when you have a car like this.”
Zhou went on to say how once that big issue had been solved the team then had a lot to experience with changes on the management side of the team as it prepares for the Audi rebranding in future.
“It’s not easy for the driver, not easy for the entire people working here and in the factory but I think now it’s good to say we are settled down finally in a better, let’s say, overall rhythm. Then hopefully we can just have a good or better momentum for the rest of the few races and try to gain some, let’s say, overall performance and then try to fight for the points.” Zhou concluded.
Sauber remain bottom of this year’s F1 Constructors’ Championship on zero points – with just 4 Grands Prix remaining. P9 is taken up by Williams and they are 17 points in front and as such it would take something truly special to see Sauber finish the year anywhere other than last.
Zhou admitted that it had not been easy to get any consistency going withing the team but claims: “it’s fair to say everything seems to be a lot more smoothed out now but it is a bit late, of course.”
It is also too late for Zhou to get another seat on the F1 grid for next year but there is a lot of speculation that the outgoing Sauber racer will return to where it all began.
Zhou signed for Ferrari’s junior Driver Academy back in 2014 (before leaving in 2018 to join the Renault Alpine driver programme) and is expected to be a reserve driver for Scuderia Ferrari in 2025. The Italian media has been widely announcing this and it would be a positive move for a man keen to keep his presence around the F1 paddock.
There is also speculation that such a move would not harm Ferrari’s sales in China. However, with the Chinese F1 Grand Prix being a sprint weekend – it would be highly unlikely that Zhou would feature in the Free Practice session that weekend. Therefore, it may be some time yet before the Chinese crowd see their hometown hero back on track on home soil.
2024 has been a year of what ifs for the driver of car number 24 and he has never had the package underneath him to show what he can do. Also, there have been many occasions when his teammate has benefited from upgrades ahead of him so a level playing field has been hard to come by.
The Chinese superstar needs to see the year out and scoring a point would no doubt do his confidence the world of good. Then he can press the reset button because after all, he is still only 25 years old and as such has plenty of time to get back into the pinnacle of motorsport.
