Why Alfa's 2022 F1 rookie feels less pressure than racing in F2
Guanyu Zhou is the first Chinese driver to secure a full-time F1 drive – and he’s got there ahead of Oscar Piastri, who beat him to the F2 title last year. But as OLEG KARPOV found out, he’s determined to prove he’s earned his place
When Guanyu Zhou scored his first European karting victory, the awards ceremony didn’t involve a Chinese flag – simply because the organisers hadn’t anticipated a driver from China would be among the podium contenders.
“It was in France, in Salbris”, Zhou tells GP Racing. “I won my first-ever European race, and then there was a British flag [on a podium]. So I wasn’t really happy about it. What was nice is that afterwards you could see it [the Chinese flag] everywhere. There would not just be the flag for the podium, there’d be flags on the circuits, like displayed on the main straight, where you have flags of most drivers’ nationalities.”
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