Guanyu Zhou made his F1 debut with Alfa Romeo earlier this season, and he has surprised everyone with his exceptional performances.
Zhou finished P3 in the 2021 F2 Championship. He was an Alpine reserve driver, like eventual Champion Oscar Piastri but finished 69.5 points behind the Australian.
A couple of seats opened up at Alfa Romeo ahead of the 2022 season, after both Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi departed. Soon, the Hinwil-based outfit announced that Valtteri Bottas and rookie Zhou would replace the outgoing drivers.
BREAKING: Guanyu Zhou will race for Alfa Romeo in 2022, becoming China’s first full-time #F1 driver pic.twitter.com/Fd3Zkwth6D
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 16, 2021
Fans were happy to see Bottas get the seat, since he had been a huge reason behind Mercedes’ recent success in F1. Zhou’s arrival, on the other hand, did not sit right with a certain section of F1 fans. They felt that the Chinese driver was not good enough for F1, and there were plenty more who were deserving of the seat.
The Shanghai born driver faced a lot of abuse online after his move to Alfa Romeo became official. In spite of that, he did not lose heart, and his exceptional performances on track have shut haters up.
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Guanyu Zhou showed why he deserves his $1 million dollar Alfa Romeo contract
Zhou proved why he was so highly rated by Alfa Romeo in his very first F1 outing. The Swiss team themselves made big strides over the winter break, and came back with a much better car than last year’s.
The 23-year-old finished P10 at the Bahrain GP, earning a point on his F1 debut. It surprised some fans, whereas a lot of people already knew how good he was. Regardless, Zhou revealed in a recent interview with Chris Medland, about how much abuse he has faced over the last few months.
WHAT A DAY. https://t.co/ri3pRi34da
— 周冠宇 | Zhou Guanyu 🇨🇳 (@ZhouGuanyu24) March 20, 2022
“When I signed the contract I had a lot of people comment or say stuff about me,” he said. “And some of them never followed Formula 2 or followed my career.”
“And especially when you’re a driver, Formula 1 was my dream since my childhood. “It got me quite down on my side, and I was even more surprised when some people were just throwing in racist stuff which is still happening in Formula 1 – like with fans in Austria – and I feel stuff like that isn’t very kind and not what I want to have.”
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