Zhou Guanyu, Sauber, Suzuka, 2024

2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #19: Zhou Guanyu

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Over his third season in F1 Zhou demonstrated he is a capable driver who can be relied on to bring his car home, but too often fails to deliver over a single flying lap. Although he took the team’s only points score of the season, there was no surprise when he (like his team mate) was shown the door at the end of the year.

Zhou probably didn’t expect to face so tough a season after the first race, where he climbed from 17th to finish one place outside the points. The team was hampered by problems with its pit stop equipment in the opening races and had good reason to expect better days ahead once that was sorted.

However Zhou compromised his chances of picking up points at this early stage with a series of incidents: A crash in Jeddah, damaging his car in qualifying at Melbourne and a mistake on his flying lap in China. Canada was a low point, Zhou crashing twice during the build-up to qualifying.

He usually started races behind his team mate, which left him at an immediate disadvantage. In Zhou’s defence, Sauber’s updates usually went to his more experienced team mate, though at times this didn’t seem to help Valtteri Bottas all that much.

Zhou Guanyu

Best Worst
GP start 12 20 (x6)
GP finish 8 20
Points 4

This was particularly true during the middle part of the season, at which point Sauber almost invariably had the slowest car, having been out-developed by their rivals. When that improved later in the year, Zhou produced a couple of noteworthy performances.

His points-scoring run in Qatar was the most obvious, though it bears pointing out his team mate was hit by a rival early on. Even so Zhou had out-qualified Bottas and put a pass on Tsunoda on his way to an excellent eighth place. Zhou’s less-heralded and unrewarded drive in Las Vegas was another late highlight, as he passed Franco Colapinto on the final lap.

He usually proved a safe pair of hands on race day, though his spin during the United States Grand Prix was a noteworthy exception. That aside, Zhou’s season was more disappointing than poor.

RaceFans’ driver rankings are based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for their performances in each round as well as other factors.

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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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11 comments on “2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #19: Zhou Guanyu”

  1. Really hard to judge his speed. Given that Bottas was fast and a decent enough racer, it should be pointing to Zhou being a decent driver too. But the car, especially the last 2 seasons has been so dismal that it makes it hard to really appreciate or rate against other drivers.

    Probably more about rating the car – and not having seen anything spectacular from the driver – though

  2. I anticipated him also getting ranked lowly. I bet Ricciardo comes next.

    1. Absolutely thrilled for you

  3. Zhou was often slower than Bottas, a mid-tier driver in pre-retirement. That’s all I need to say.

    1. The same bottas who outperformed perez in 2021 in similar cars when perez was still decent.

      1. 2021 is irrelevant. Perez got slower and so did Bottas.

    2. Not saying bottas was a top driver, but certainly not as bad as some people are making him look, and one of the best number 2 drivers on the grid.

  4. I don’t think Bottas was any better this season, but I’m not sure if this means Zhou raised his game or Valteri got slower. A bit of both probably.

    1. Valtteri.
      Funny how one does 12 seasons in F1 and still people struggle to write his name correctly.

  5. Zhou wasn’t that far off Bottas, but his qualifying held him back and he seems to have been overly cautious. It’s a tricky balance; it’s easy to get written off as being crash prone, but not having any stand-out results is equally likely to be the end of a career at the back of the field.

    I think Zhou would do well in sportscars. Hopefully he finds his way to the WEC.

  6. Surprised to see a gap in the rankings between Zhou and Bottas. Yes, Zhou struggled mid-season, but he found his ground later on when the updates and technical issues were resolved while Bottas trailed off. Notably Zhou delivered when it mattered, whereas Bottas made clumsy moves to throw away the only real chance to score points in Abu Dhabi. There was little the pair could show in an underperforming car, anyway.
    A racer with passion, I’m gonna miss Zhou. He will surely inspire a generation of Chinese drivers, but we’ll have to wait to see the results of that.

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