Compared to many of the rookies that had entered Formula 1 in the years before he joined the world championship in 2022, Zhou Guanyu has stood out for being one of the more disciplined young drivers of his generation.
Aside from an unfortunate incident last year at Hungary, where he triggered a chain reaction at the start that took out multiple rivals, the Sauber driver has generally been one of the cleanest on the grid.Zhou rarely retires through his own fault and generally manages to avoid spinning out of qualifying, unlike some drivers who are paid much more to drive far quicker cars. But while consistency and limiting errors are key qualities to have in a Formula 1 driver, so too is outright speed. And three years into his F1 career, Zhou does not appear to have found a lot more speed than he had in his first season.
Driving the slowest car on the grid – and the only one to have failed to score a point after the first 14 rounds – is always going to limit opportunities to impress. But it’s telling that while Zhou has been slowest of all in Q1 six of the 14 grand prix qualifying sessions held so far this season, team mate Valtteri Bottas has qualified lower than 17th only once.
Unlike those lower down than him on this list, Zhou hasn’t had as many truly poor weekends. His Jeddah weekend was by no means good, crashing heavily at turn eight in final practice which effectively put him out of qualifying, before he finished last after taking a gamble on strategy. In Monaco, he was half a second slower than Bottas in qualifying, then allowed himself to get mugged by Logan Sargeant for one of the few overtaking moves of the race.
Zhou Guanyu
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 14 | 20 (x4) |
| GP finish | 11 | 19 |
| Points | 0 | |
His Montreal weekend was worse. He had another meeting with the wall in practice before a second spin at turn two ended his final practice session. After being eliminated slowest in Q1, again, he was the only car to finish a lap down in the grand prix – but at least he reached the chequered flag, unlike Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz Jnr.
Zhou has been able to put together decent weekends too. Perhaps his best came at the opening round of the season in Bahrain where he rose up from 17th on the grid to only just miss out on a point in 11th place. He also flew under the radar in Miami, where he finished 11th in the sprint race and gained five positions in the grand prix to finish 14th, two places ahead of his team mate. His Spanish Grand Prix drive was also underappreciated, finishing two places higher than he started in a race without any Safety Cars in what is likely the slowest car in the field. Silverstone was also a decent showing for Zhou as well, but almost every decision his pit wall made during the race seemed to be the wrong one, meaning he made four separate trips through the pit lane in the race – something not even Max Verstappen could have recovered from.
Aside from those highs and lows, however, Zhou has otherwise been unremarkable. And when there is so much talent on the current grid – with plenty more promising drivers knocking on the door to enter Formula 1 – that is simply not enough to cut it.
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Nick T.
6th August 2024, 23:14
Name one thing Zhou has done better than Stroll, Will.
Ben
7th August 2024, 6:51
Spent less time in walls. Not picked up penalties for colliding with others under a safety car. Not been reprimanded for driving “erratically” (aggressively at another driver) in Practice. Collected less penalty points from stewards. Yeah, a few things.
Patrick (@paeschli)
7th August 2024, 9:17
It’s easier to stay out of trouble if you drive slower
Nick T.
7th August 2024, 15:37
So, the argument is Zhou’s had a better season because Stroll rear-ended DR and got a penalty in practice? Very convincing…
Also Zhou has spent plenty of time smashing his car up and is among the likes of Checo and Logan for being the least competitive against his teammate.
But, yeah, an argument that rests solely on penalty points instead of results, is a really strong argument for who’s doing better…
Ben
8th August 2024, 12:59
That’s not the question you asked.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
7th August 2024, 7:12
Also it’s very difficult to prove yourself when you have such a bad car, you see that even bottas, who has been doing a decent job, hasn’t been able to score points.
Nick T.
7th August 2024, 15:51
Well, that’s the entire problem w/having to rank drivers 1-20 rather than the grouping or avg weekend rating like we discussed. It rarely truly reflects how drivers are doing, but rather how the cars are doing. Unless a driver fails to get results out of his car while his teammate does, he’ll usually be ranked somewhere very close to his place in the points standings.
As I think you noted, you know a rating is highly questionable when two-dozen or so users (including myself) profess their contempt for Stroll as a person yet at the same time object to his ranking.
Anyway, I wonder how Lawrence feels about Lance. He’s got 100X more passion for F1 than Lance (we won’t even compare work ethic lol). I wonder if he still has high hopes for Lance or if he would actually be happy if Lance quit. It’s such a shame that, barring Lance, Lawrence would be an extremely appreciated team owner.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
6th August 2024, 23:16
I agree with most of the reasoning Will. However I’m still not convinced Zhou deserves to be ranked higher than Stroll. I mean Stroll was closer to Alonso this season than Zhou was to Bottas. Says it all really. It’s not that Stroll wasn’t poor, it’s that Zhou was even worse.
Nick T.
7th August 2024, 0:25
Even his own words seemed to clearly argue he shouldn’t be ahead of Stroll or even maybe Logan at this point.
It’s hard to say with Checo too. He’s been an absolute embarrassment for more than half the season at this point, but I am not confident he could have even put in the semi-competitive results Checo did at the beginning. All-in-all, I still think Checo deserves to be behind Zhou.
MacLeod (@macleod)
7th August 2024, 7:55
Also we have to keep in mind Lance drives a much better car able to get points while Zhou (or Bottas) drives a car must have a lot of DNF in front of them to get 1 point.
So compairing him with Bottas is the best what we can do and modify that with crashes/mistakes he had.
Will Wood (@willwood)
7th August 2024, 9:01
Perfectly reasonable.
I always enjoy seeing the different perspectives that people have on the performances of drivers through the season. It’s all subjective, ultimately!
notagrumpyfan
7th August 2024, 9:54
@WillWood,
You knew this was coming, as even in your own weekly ratings Stroll was sitting (on average) above Zhou and Ricciardo.
I think it would help if you could be more explicit about the subjective choices you made between a couple of drives when ranking them differently here.
It would be an interesting read, and useful handle for the commenters to discuss further (rather than just saying they ‘disagree’ or it’s ‘wrong’)
MichaelN
7th August 2024, 11:38
It’s probably unfair on Zhou, but the only thing he’s done this year I can recall was being so slow to navigate the Pérez crash in Monaco that Sainz got to restart from 3rd.
There’s no glory to be won in this Sauber though, and while Bottas might have the measure of him on Saturday, they just slip back in the races and end up with the near exact same average finishing position. It becomes hard to judge the drivers in those circumstances, and Zhou’s careful approach might even be the only thing that could get them a lucky point in a chaotic race (although those don’t tend to happen much in this era of red flags and endless SCs).
Zhou is also another example of a driver that never really seems to get better. He impressed on his debut by being somewhat close to Bottas, but he’s arguably not even doing that right now. He’ll probably be out in 2026, maybe even next year already.