Formula 2 has created a new award in honour of Anthoine Hubert, who was killed in a crash at Spa-Francorchamps in August.
The trophy was presented to its inaugural winner Guanyu Zhou by Hubert’s brother Victhor, at the championship’s prize-giving ceremony in Monaco today. Zhou was the top-scoring rookie in this year’s F2 championship and ended the campaign seventh overall.“It is a huge honour to be receiving this special Anthoine Hubert Award for the Rookie of the Year,” said Zhou. “I think that it is something that will be a great memory for me, and for this year.
“From a personal point of view, this has obviously been a great season, and we have achieved stuff that we never expected to be achieving so quickly.”
Zhou, who was part of Renault’s young driver programme with Hubert, said he is “trying to do him proud and I will continue trying to make him proud for the rest of my racing career.”
“As such, we have decided to give this award named after Anthoine to the best rookie of the season, a title which I am convinced he could have fought for by this year’s end.”
At the time of his death Hubert was the second-highest rookie driver in the championship standings behind Zhou. He still held the position in the final championship classification after six further races. Hubert won this year’s sprint races at Monaco and Paul Ricard.
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Joao (@johnmilk)
11th December 2019, 23:41
Simply perfect gesture from F2
Zhou and Anthoine were the best rookies of the season, sadly we didn’t see how that fight finished and Zhou deservedly was the best rookie of the year. 5 podiums and best rookie position of the championship
Couldn’t think of a better gesture than this.
Derek Edwards
11th December 2019, 23:54
Agree wholeheartedly.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
12th December 2019, 2:39
Wow, very fitting.
On a different note – it seems like Renault’s drivers have had a 1-2 in F2, with Zhou and the late Hubert. In the absence of a B team in F1, what are Renault’s plans to bring their juniors into F1?
Joao (@johnmilk)
12th December 2019, 10:51
@phylyp they have said that they want to bring one driver from their junior program into F1. Zhou is an ideal candidate, even his nationality plays in his favour
btw, one two of the standout drivers in F3, Lundgaard and Fewtrell, aslo are from the Renault academy, they have a lot of talent at the moment, and I feel they are spoilt for choice if they want to bring some of those kids in
Plus, if the rumours about Panthera come out to be true, it would be the ideal place to place them
Phylyp (@phylyp)
12th December 2019, 11:18
Thank you, @johnmilk
Very cool to hear about Renault’s driver pipeline being this capable. Also, I didn’t realize Panthera was aligned with Renault, good for them.
Joao (@johnmilk)
12th December 2019, 11:44
I thought I read that somewhere @phylyp, but now that I’m searching for it I can’t seem to find it, so don’t quote me on that one
But I had the feelinf that they were working on getting engines from renault
Craig Simons
12th December 2019, 11:14
The real question is what are Renault’s plans for it’s future in F1? If Renault decides to bail at the end of 2020, then their juniors will be potentially left with nowhere to go.