F1 News
How the dramatic Sauber killed Bottas' and Zhou's F1 careers
- Ludo van Denderen
For Guanyu Zhou, his Formula 1 adventure will come to an end after the current season. Sauber, who will be Audi in the future, have chosen Gabriel Bortoleto as Nico Hulkenberg's teammate, leaving the Chinese driver and his teammate Valtteri Bottas without a seat for 2025. What Zhou will do next? The Chinese driver acknowledges how competitive the current market is and that finding a place in an appealing series will be extremely difficult.
"Another category probably will be quite difficult because a lot of categories when they contacted me before, it was that I have to make some decisions very soon," Zhou reflects, knowing that those teams have also made other choices. "But I'm definitely looking for quite a bit of alternative options. Either being a reserve role or doing something else there’s still some good options available. So we need to look more into that."
Did Zhou and Bottas underperform?
Neither Zhou nor Bottas have managed to score a single point this season as the Swiss team have simply not been competitive enough to compete with the midfield. With the limited options Bottas and Zhou have, they are trying to maximise, but to the outside world it looks like they are not performing as drives. Has this been detrimental for their careers?
"It's a very tough season, at least especially I think for both of our drivers in the cockpit because this is not the season you want. It's the market of Formula One. It's very wide open at the beginning of the year. You want to perform but it's not the case, so it's tricky. Like you said, it's definitely hurting a little bit overall for the career but that's the case now we just try to give it all our best. Then see how everything’s going to be for the future," Zhou concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Jenny Garnett.
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