In 2022, Valtteri Bottas arrived at the Alfa Romeo-branded Sauber team looking to forge a new career path in Formula 1 after being dropped by front-runners Mercedes.
Meanwhile Zhou Guanyu arrived in Formula 1 seeking to establish himself as a grand prix driver. But three years on both find themselves without race drives for next season.Arguably, both drivers failed to exceed expectations of how they would perform in order to convince either their current team to keep them or another to hire them.
Bottas, a 10-times grand prix winner, came to Alfa Romeo having just helped Mercedes win the constructors’ championship for the eighth year in a row. The early signs were promising: He started his first race for his new team on the third row alongside former team mate Lewis Hamilton.
Zhou, meanwhile, scored the same number of points in his first two seasons: six. Given how much less competitive the team was in 2023, this reflected some progress on Zhou’s part. During that time his share of the team’s points rose from around a tenth to more than a third.
That trend continued in 2024 when Zhou was the team’s only points-scorer, but made just a single appearance in the top 10, picking up four points. Those came on one of the team’s most competitive weekends of the year, in Qatar, when Bottas was delayed by a collision with Liam Lawson.
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But though Zhou’s improvement was discernible, he never consistently overcame his more experienced team mate, and his ejection from the grid after three years doesn’t look like an injustice. He finished behind Bottas more often than not this year. The qualifying battle was more one-sided than ever at 19-4, though that may partly reflect the days on which only Bottas had Sauber’s latest upgrades.
It’s not difficult to see why Sauber chose not to retain Zhou, and the same is true for Bottas. Over three years, he finished ahead of Zhou two times to one. Had the team’s performance not gradually declined over that period, the rookie’s points haul would have looked more impressive, though even then it wouldn’t have made an obvious case for Zhou deserving a fourth season.
Bottas vs Zhou, 2022-24
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Zhou’s performance against Bottas in 2024
| BAH | SAU | AUS | JAP | CHI | MIA | EMI | MON | CAN | SPA | AUT | GBR | HUN | BEL | NED | ITA | AZE | SIN | USA | MEX | BRZ | LAS | QAT | ABU | ||
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Qualifying gaps between Bottas and Zhou in 2024
Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Negative value: Guanyu was faster; Positive value: Bottas was faster
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Jeffrey Powell
27th December 2024, 8:45
Well done Mercedes in having a reserve driver quite capable of winning a grand prix in a competitive car if the need be.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
27th December 2024, 13:12
Honestly, yeah. Red Bull and Ferrari don’t have a capable reserve who can just step in at a moment’s notice and be assured of not embarrassing themselves. This is such an asset, like we saw with Bearman last year.
Roy Beedrill
27th December 2024, 14:27
I’m pretty sure, in case of Hamilton or Leclerc to miss a race next year, Bearman will drive for Ferrari, same way as it was with Russell in Mercedes/Williams. This is even better, considering he will be driving an actual F1 car IRL for the whole season and not only on the simulator.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th December 2024, 14:55
Roy Beedrill Easier said than done unless Haas has a regular reserve driver.
I don’t know if Pietro Fittipaldi is still fully involved with the team.
Simon
27th December 2024, 22:36
You… don’t… know???
Jere (@jerejj)
28th December 2024, 6:16
Simon I didn’t necessarily mean to imply that I literally don’t or didn’t know, but I’ve been somewhat unsure as I’ve barely seen him appearing on the GP weekends in a team shirt anymore.
El Pollo Loco
27th December 2024, 14:07
Barely capable. His record versus Zhou is not impressive and the number of wins and poles during five seasons at Mercedes is even far less impressive. An anemic average of 2 wins per seasons in one of the most dominant cars in history. It seems people are now using Perez as the bar for Bottas, but the reality is that even then they were quite similar. Both would start off seasons strong and then quickly fall miles behind. The only difference is that Bottas falling apart didn’t see him being eliminated in Q1. However, it did see him typically finishing 40+ seconds behind. Just like Max since 2021, Lewis had zero internal challenge for the last five titles he won at Mercedes.
Jeffrey Powell
27th December 2024, 14:26
I have no doubt you are absolutely right unless of course Bottas has the opportunity to prove you wrong , it is of course wrong to use Perez as a yardstick as he only had 3 Poles to Bottas’s 20.
El Pollo Loco
27th December 2024, 18:10
He has already proven me right. Once again, 10 wins across five seasons and never came close to giving Lewis a true challenge.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th December 2024, 19:22
Comparing bottas and perez is an injustice to bottas: he only lost the mercedes seat cause mercedes believed they had a hamilton-like driver coming up in russell, but if they had wanted to continue with the support driver model, bottas was good enough, perez these last 2 seasons wasn’t even good enough to do that.
anon
29th December 2024, 15:15
El Pollo Loco, as Esploratore notes, it is unfair on Bottas in a number of areas though, where he has been distinctly better than Perez.
In particular, when it’s come to crashes due to driver error, Perez has had a significantly worse record in recent years on that front. In 2024 alone, Perez managed to crash more times due to driver error than Bottas managed from 2022 to 2024 combined; similarly, it’s meant that Perez has been one of the most expensive drivers in the past few years to run due to the number of accidents he’s had. By comparison, due to his low accident rate, Bottas has been one of the cheapest drivers on the grid in terms of accident damage.
Wer
27th December 2024, 16:36
“[…] a […] driver quite capable of winning a grand prix in a competitive car if the need be.”
That’s basically the entire F1 grid. Maybe except for Perez on his bad day.
Unless you tamper with the definition of a “competetive car”.
/accidently posted this lower down the section/
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th December 2024, 19:24
There’s plenty of drivers who won’t win with a competitive car, as a competitive car means you need to fend off the likes of verstappen, norris, hamilton, leclerc, russell!
El Pollo Loco
29th December 2024, 5:17
I think he meant any driver who had Max’s 2023 car or Hamilton’s ’14, ‘15, ‘16, etc. car advantage, basically every driver on the grind is capable of winning. A season like 2024 when four teams had 7 drivers capable of winning on most weekends is extremely rare.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th December 2024, 19:24
For the record, we had 4 competitive cars in 2024, depending on the race.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
29th December 2024, 16:06
the cars appeared competitive because the tires were so bad.
in reality Red Bull had the best car by a country mile, and the most competitive car of the year, the only thing that kept Max from winning almost, or every race was what ever happened to their car before or at Miami.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
29th December 2024, 16:07
And because it’s hush hush, or what ever is going on behind the scenes, it’s clearly ANTI-competitive.
David
27th December 2024, 9:20
I was pleased that Zhou that got the only points for Sauber this year because it would stop the lazy criticism that he was “useless”. He was not a great F1 driver, but he was not an embarrassment behind the wheel. 3 seasons seems like the right return for his talent.
Bottas meanwhile has been cruising for at least 2 seasons, distracted by his life in Australia, He’s probably right to feel hard done by over promises made by previous Sauber/Audi leadership but he hasn’t made a convincing case to keep a seat ahead of either Hulkenberg or Ocon.
Mercedes have been very generous in giving him the reserve drive role but I suspect that is more because of Toto’s relationship with him than any real intention to try him out against Kimi (or George).
Sauber meanwhile are going though another of their slumps, and that future with Audi seems to have been a mirage, I don’t think there will be any connection with the German manufacturer when 2026 finally arrives.
notagrumpyfan
27th December 2024, 12:41
Somebody ‘cruising’ on a multi-million compensation package, but still blaming (feeling hard done-by) others would be the first to leave my organisation.
On the other side of the garage:
I think that three years is too long for below F1 average talent. How often have we seen rookies who did not perform in their first year, becoming a great driver afterwards?
Albon & Gasly were arguably better than Zhou in their respective rookie years. And also they don’t seem to be the next Verstappen, Nossis, or even Sainz Jr.
I’d argue that mature rookies (with 3+ years in junior series) should only have one year to show their ability to fight in F1.
Young promising talents (<21yrs) with little experience (<2 years in junior series), should maybe given an extra year. But even that might be too long if the first year didn't show any progress (e.g. Sargeant).
El Pollo Loco
27th December 2024, 14:14
Indeed, good drivers ALWAYS show they’re good immediately. The only thing I’d say about Zhou is that he wasn’t as useless as his car showed. Given a car that should always be in Q3, I’d expect him to be in Q3 most of the time, but often failing to qualify in the top 6. However, I agree that his rookie season was enough to show he should have been replaced and if it hadn’t been for his sponsorship he would have.
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th December 2024, 10:08
I think the head to head at Sauber just proved how awful the team has been as a constructor over the last 3 years. We know Bottas is not a top tier talent so by handily beating Zhou it just proved he wasn’t going to be the next big talent in the sport. I think Bottas did his job well for Sauber as a barometer for performance to measure against Zhou. Zhou did okay but he’s clearly not going to advance any further with that team and hasn’t shown enough for other teams to try and pick him up. The only metric that really matters for head to head performance measurement in back marker cars is laps ahead imo.
David
27th December 2024, 11:20
also if you think about it Bottas was very often comparable/respectable against Hamilton in qualy, but way too often nowhere near him in raceday. what does it tell about Zhou than that he spent this many laps behind Bottas over the years (who was likely mostly just cruising around especially the last 2 years)? probably no real place on merit to be in the field anymore. but he can be proud to do 3 years in F1 nonetheless
Frank
27th December 2024, 11:44
To be fair, neither is Russell.
El Pollo Loco
27th December 2024, 14:20
Except Russell was only outscored by 2 points over three seasons and beat him in their quali head-to-head. So, Bottas was nowhere near Russell in any way. So, saying “To be fair, neither is Russell” is simply wrong. Had you said, “Lewis was usually stronger on race day than Russell,” that would have been accurate.
Frank
27th December 2024, 18:37
Hamilton consistently had the upper hand on race pace.
That says nothing about the qualifying pace of Russell. Nor does it imply that Russell is at the level of Bottas.
I merely want to highlight that the race pace of Hamilton is a very, very high yardstick.
El Pollo Loco
29th December 2024, 5:20
It’s very, very high when the car comes good. Hamilton’s race pace was not notably better than Russell on weekends where the car was mediocre for the entire weekend.
MichaelN
27th December 2024, 12:03
Almost 40% ahead is not too bad. Zhou is a decent enough driver, but he’s not going to be hired by any top teams. Bottas was, but in the supporting role – and to his credit, he had his moments where he was straight up faster than Hamilton. It was in seasons like 2018 that he couldn’t keep up with the likes of Vettel, Verstappen and Räikkönen. All of which is fair enough; Zhou certainly didn’t embarrass himself and was a good first Chinese F1 driver. The road he had to travel to get here has been impressive, and it’s no shame that he isn’t in that top tier. Hopefully in the future, more of his compatriots will find their way to F1.
And Zhou’s careful but steady approach might well land him a good WEC seat.
Wer
27th December 2024, 16:31
“[…] a […] driver quite capable of winning a grand prix in a competitive car if the need be.”
That’s basically the entire F1 grid. Maybe except for Perez on his bad day.
Unless you tamper with the definition of a “competetive car”.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th December 2024, 19:33
As answered above, I believe there’s plenty of drivers who wouldn’t get a win with a competitive car, especially in a season like this, as they’d have to go up against the top drivers in fairly similar cars.
Edvaldo
27th December 2024, 19:47
In 3 seasons, the car was decent for half, in early ’22. They were one of the few teams not overweight at the beginning of these regulations and thus were punching way above their weight, Bottas was even in the mix with Mercedes in some races.
Then reality set in and it was sad to see.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
27th December 2024, 21:05
I suspect Valtteri told the people at Sauber how to do things the “Mercedes way”, but they mostly ignored it and instead did things the “Sauber way”, so it is hardly surprising Sauber didn’t get better results. It will be interesting to see if Sauber get better results in the 2025 season.
Albo94
28th December 2024, 8:18
The worst pair of drivers in the weakest 2024 car. Full stop.
El Pollo Loco
29th December 2024, 5:26
Undoubtedly. Only Albon and Logan were about the same until Logan left. Albon and Bottas are decent, but they were only pairings in which a notably bad driver only had a decent driver as a teammate, unlike Max and Perez or Alonso and Stroll (and even Stroll was far better than Logan and Perez and at least marginally better than Zhou).