As more experienced teammate Valtteri Bottas struggled with his unruly C43 during last Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, it was Zhou Guanyu who shone for the team all weekend, qualifying 13th on his fourth appearance in Q2 this season and going on to have a solid race, ultimately crossing the line in 10th position behind the AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda before the Japanese driver received a penalty for an incident with Zhou earlier in the race, promoting car 24 into P9.
Zhou’s 2 points now see the Swiss outfit draw level with Haas in the constructors’ standings.
After a lighting start from the 24-year-old seeing him leap from P13 to P9 on the opening lap, he then overtook Hulkenberg for P8 on Lap 7. The Alfa Romeo driver found himself in a good position to take home some much-needed points in a car that hasn’t been overly competitive so far this season, as he reflected after the race:
“It was a well-executed race from my side I think, one of the best two days from my time in Formula One. A really good first lap gave us the opportunity to do something this race – the pace was strong, tyre management crucial and we made it to the end. Kept the pressure high so when there was a chance I tried to force a mistake…..so really happy to finally grab some more points.”
However it was the clash with Tsunoda and ensuing penalty for the AlphaTauri driver which came to dominate conversations post-race, with Zhou feeling it was completely deserved:
“I think it was the right call by the stewards, because obviously on my side I had the run, I had DRS, I was ahead braking – half a car length at least into the corner then next thing I see was him releasing the brake trying to run me fully off track. I had no more space, I had to take the escape road to avoid action so that was a pretty spicy turn one but at the end things were looking the right way and I got the position I wanted.”
Though he was grinning at the end of the weekend and encouraging a race as it was for him, it is only his second visit to the points this season after also picking up two points at the Australian Grand Prix where the team debuted a new nose and front wing. With performances like that of his opening lap in Spain, if the team can provide him the tools to do the job perhaps there is more points for the Chinese driver in the near future.
