F1: This Is Why Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu Is Making History
Joining Valtteri Bottas for Alfa Romeo this year is Zhou Guanyu. A 22 year old making F1 history as the first Chinese driver to be in the driver line up.
Zhou first visited the Grand Prix in Shanghai in 2004 which inspired the driver to become China’s first F1 racer. He started go-karting in Shanghai at the age of eight and this grew his passion for the sport even more.
Moving to England as a family when Zhou was twelve to pursue his career proved successful as he joined Ferrari’s driver academy in 2014. Zhou finished in second place in the Italian F4 championship in 2015.
Zhou made the move to Renault’s academy in 2019 where he made his first Formula 2 debut later that year. He did three seasons across which he had numerous wins and pole positions. Fred Vasseur, Alfa Romeo Team Principal, then gave Zhou his spot in the F1 for this years season.
Bottas has explained that he thinks the pair will work well together:
“Absolutely we’ll be working together and if there’s anything I can do to help him personally, I will do my best, and the same thing if there’s anything I can learn from him, I will, and now it’s time to put our heads together and work with the set-up,”