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How this driver had to teach himself a completely new driving style before 2024
- Ludo van Denderen
No doubt Guanyu Zhou had imagined his third season in Formula 1 differently. After two years of learning, '24 needed to be harvested, especially as his contract with Stake F1 (Sauber) expires after the season. But the Kick Sauber C44 proved a total failure, by far the slowest car the field. No points could Zhou pick up with it so far. Indeed, the Chinese has had to adjust his driving style to go as fast as possible with the car at all.
So these were not easy months for Zhou, he tells GPblog. Instructive, certainly. Asked about the better and worse parts of his own season as a driver, he says: "For me, starting with the bad parts is that it's quite clear with the new concept of the car, for my driving style there is quite a lot to be adjusted, to be changing, just because I'm quite like, let’s say aggressive, and I need to change a little bit my approach to be smoother. The car has been super sensitive. So it's kind of a bit tricky and I'm trying to change a bit my driving style basically."
And that takes time, in Zhou's experience. ""So it's not an easy season at the moment. But things (in changing my driving style, ed.) are starting to come along a bit more likely now and the good thing I think this year is quite clear. I can understand exactly what I need to do [to be successful], or where's my strong preference on the direction we want to take. There's a question about how we can we take that or at least the understanding of everything you see."
According to Zhou, this is the problem with the Sauber
When Zhou analyses the weaknesses of his Sauber car, there are several things that stand out. "For sure, we're lacking on a stop-and-go track. Spielberg is a clear example. We don't have a lot of traction on the exit. And then also the high speed is quite on the nose. But yeah, it's not been easy for the whole team, but also obviously we couldn't bring the parts because of the delay, which was the pit stop issue at the beginning of the season so we need to parallelize that to make sure we fix that but it's (the futher development) getting a bit delayed unfortunately."
In any case, Zhou has had little to no opportunity to excel this season, just in a year when he hopes to earn a new contract. There are only a handful of spots available in Formula 1, so there is a good chance that the Chinese is driving his final months in the sport. Still, he does not want to look at options outside Formula 1.
"At the moment, not. Obviously, if you want to go somewhere else, I think it's quite tricky to come back [to F1]. A lot of series are quite interested in having me but I’m not talking to any teams beside from Formula 1 and that’s quite simple," Zhou concluded.