Latifi “needs to watch his mirrors more” says Zhou after collision

2022 Singapore Grand Prix

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Zhou Guanyu says Nicholas Latifi should pay more attention to his mirrors after the pair collided and retired from yesterday’s Singapore Grand Prix.

The stewards held Latifi responsible for the incident between the two drivers at turn five on lap seven. Zhou accused his rival of “pretty unfair driving standards” and said Latifi almost caused a collision before they made contact.

“The lap before he nearly put me into the wall at turn eight,” said Zhou. “Then that lap he went deep at turn three, he was defending into turn four, five and then I was like ‘okay, I’ll go to the outside’.

“We were side-by-side, the next thing I saw was him going fully across to the left. So that put myself into the wall. It was a bit unnecessary considering it was only like lap three, lap four in the race.”

“He needs to watch his mirrors more,” said Zhou, who started five places ahead of Latifi but fell behind him after a slow start.

“There’s not much I can do,” he said. “I was alongside him and the guy just decided to fully close the door and put me into the wall.

“The front-right suspension was broken after that. It’s a bit unfortunate because I feel like the pace was there.

“Of course we had a little bit of an issue at the start, but it’s not ideal because we tried to race fair, but when you don’t have any room when you’re alongside, they’re just not racing.”

Latifi was given a five-place grid penalty for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix for causing their collision.

“I guess it’s pretty straightforward from my side, so I don’t know what the stewards [could] do,” said Zhou. “But anyway, I think for the result it doesn’t really change much.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “Latifi “needs to watch his mirrors more” says Zhou after collision”

  1. Of course Latifi has very little practice with the need to use his mirrors.
    He probably assumed that whenever a car wants to overtake they’ll warn him with the blue lights ;)

    1. Lol that was below the belt………

      1. Below the belt, but richly deserved.

  2. “Latifi was given a five-place grid penalty for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix for causing their collision.”

    another pointless penalty because he will quali last 0.6 seconds behind the driver in 19th anyway… a race ban and placing Nyck de Vries in the seat would be the perfect scenario but latifi is a rich pay driver and my guess is that Williams do not want to refund him if he does not race…

    Zhou needs to learn quick in F1, with his horrendous start and everyone knows latifi is a meme tier driver who is a liability and needs to be treated with extreme caution why would zhou attempt a high risk low percentage overtake on the outside?
    Zhou was always a consistent journeyman when he was in f2 for 3 seasons but poor at overtakes so the move on latifi did look like a move of desperation after a poor start.

    It seems that zhou has been directed by his handlers this season to not go 100% and just bring the car home and hope for points when other cars in front dnf (today he probably would’ve finished 10-12th) which is fine but unlike F2 in F1 you cant ‘just’ hang back and try to keep your nose clean especially when you quali towards the back of the grid because you will always be part in other drivers incidents.

    1. I do wish Williams could invoke some sort of performance clause to pry him out of that seat for the last few races. He clearly has no place in F1 and moreover is becoming a hazard. They should do all they can to get Nyck in that seat immediately which may sway him toward signing for Williams instead of Alpha Tauri next year. And as other people have said, what use is a five place grid penalty with this guy?

  3. 5 place grid penalty for Latifi..? net effect no change then – he’ll still be last

  4. Maybe we should have a system where if you reach a certain number of grid drops which cannot be served then you get a race ban. So if Latifi qualifies 19th then four unserved grid penalties go to the tally, and he gets a race ban after the tally reaches ten or twenty.

    1. Which means the rules would favour the faster drivers and faster cars, which shouldn’t matter. But indeed, this system is often pointless.

  5. He doesn’t need to watch his mirrors more….

    He needs to be out of the seat.

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