As the checkered flag fell on the 2024 Formula One season, celebrations ensued.
Lewis Hamilton did donuts on the main straight. Lando Norris cheered on the radio as McLaren team members hollered with joy from the garages. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz shook hands and debriefed one final time after bringing home a double podium in their last race as Ferrari teammates. And off at one of the corners at Yas Marina Circuit, as fireworks went off, a Sauber pulled over into the runoff area and began doing his own donuts.
It was Zhou Guanyu, F1’s first Chinese driver and the only one to score points for the Switzerland-based team this year. And despite that accomplishment coming during a difficult season for Sauber, he is left without a seat for 2025 (along with his teammate of three seasons, Valtteri Bottas).
Sauber will evolve into Audi from 2026, and next season, the team will have a fresh driver lineup with Formula Two champion Gabriel Bortoleto and veteran Nico Hülkenberg. The announcement of Bortoleto joining, which broke in early November, is just one of the team’s major changes since the summer break. Senior management shifted, with former Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto taking over for Andreas Seidl, and Jonathan Wheatley is leaving Red Bull to become the team principal after serving gardening leave.
This chapter may have come to a close, but Zhou is still “hoping for another chance” and is confident he’ll still be around the F1 paddock. It’s just a matter of what color he’ll be sporting.
“There’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes, so we need just to be making the right call,” Zhou said to The Athletic in Las Vegas, “and, yeah, makes you comfortable with what you choose, and then you can really give it all, and hopefully that one day I can be back in this grid.”
Moments after the Chinese Grand Prix ended in April, Zhou pulled up to the main straight, which is typically reserved for the top three finishers after the race. But there was a special marker with his photo waiting for him.
He climbed out of his car and crouched, placing his hands on his face as a wave of emotion washed over him at the Shanghai International Circuit — his home track. Zhou may not have secured a win or appeared on the podium during this F1 chapter. But he left an impact, inspiring the next generation and helping the sport change.
Zhou reckons there won’t be another Chinese driver in the pinnacle of motorsport in the next decade. Currently, the only other Chinese driver in the F1 pyramid is Gerrard Xie, who will join Hitech in Formula Three next season. But Zhou hopes his story helps inspire young drivers.
“Formula One, for me, it was like a very far away dream that I had or set for myself,” Zhou said. “So, to this day, I’m just really honored to be finally achieved that.”
Zhou attended the track’s first grand prix in 2004 and caught the motorsport bug. He jumped into karting and moved to the United Kingdom at 12 with his family, chasing his dream. Ferrari signed him to its academy in 2014, and a year later, he secured a second-place finish in the Italian F4 championship. But when he advanced to Formula Two in 2019, he joined Renault’s academy (now Alpine). He spent three years in the category, becoming the leading rookie that year and challenging for the driver’s title in 2021.
After proving himself as a race winner in F2, his big F1 break came. Alfa Romeo signed Zhou and Valtteri Bottas for an all-new driver lineup for the 2022 season, a partnership that continued through 2024. His debut season, though, ended with just six points to his name but praises for his performances — and a fresh contract. He began matching Bottas near the end of 2022, but Bottas out-qualified the Chinese driver 15-6 last season. And the race comparison was tighter, 12-9 (but Bottas still finished ahead).
Bottas and Zhou were more closely matched this season at times, but the car’s performance was light-years away. In 2022, the team ended the season with 55 points, and two years later, after a year of issues, Sauber closed this chapter with just four points. Pit stop problems early on took resources away from developing the car, and Sauber was arguably on the back foot for most of the season.
Looking back on 2024 in Las Vegas with three races to go, Zhou said that he had “mixed feelings” about the year.
“In beginning of season, the car actually was working in a representative way that we was fighting quite closely for a top 10,” he said. “Then, of course, we had this pit stop issue, which (we) suffered for seven races, which is a lot. And then after seven race, we don’t have the performance on the car anymore.”
But Zhou admitted he struggled with his qualifying pace due to the car’s new concept. He said, “I apply a different driving style, which I struggled a lot more than my teammate.” He tends to be more aggressive with his driving style, and he said in the Las Vegas media pen that the car is quite sensitive.
“Every little movement I do on the steering wheel, on pedals, it just became a bigger, let’s say, feedback inverted into car balance. So the car is tricky, then you need to be extra smooth, which I think Valtteri is very good at it over the years. But for me, I just clearly struggled more and more.”
Zhou later told The Athletic that he felt the team had made a step forward but felt “this season clearly went in the opposite direction than we hoped.”
When it comes to his confidence, he feels strong in race pace, but it drifts a bit with one-lap pace. “I don’t feel I’m able to give it 100 percent with the car, and I need to adapt a little bit of driving, and then it doesn’t really give me the best, let’s say, most efficient way to develop the lap time under qualified performance.” But in the races, he is more comfortable in the driver’s seat and is “doing a lot better job” that what the results show on paper.
“You can’t show the results because you do your best race, maybe you can finish P12, P13,” he continued. “And if I did the same last year, it will be a much more comfortable top 10, I would say. And then, things like that happen, that’s probably the hard part.”
Clapping ensued as Zhou and Bottas made their way through the Abu Dhabi GP paddock. Sauber employees flanked the teammates all the way to the team’s garage, creating a guard of honor before F1’s season finale.
After carrying the team through one of its more difficult chapters, the only points coming from Zhou’s eighth-place finish in Qatar a week prior, this was it. This chapter of their respective motorsports careers had come to a close.
Binotto labeled the Qatar GP “an important race for us.” The months without points became painful, and for Sauber to be in contention, even with the upgrade packages, “we know somehow for us to score points we need someone ahead of us making mistakes or something happening, but being just behind, somehow, to take the opportunity.”
Zhou’s four points showed Sauber “that the progress is going in the right direction, showing that whatever we’re delivering is somehow correlating as well with the wind tunnel and the simulator,” Binotto said in Abu Dhabi. People became emotional in the garage at the result, including himself. He added, “I was not used to (being) emotional to finish in P8, but now it’s happening because we know where we are, we know where it’s coming from.”
It was a moment that almost didn’t happen. Zhou endured a chaotic first lap where he “lost the gear stick before the start” of the grand prix, falling near the back of the pack, and he said Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll “divebombed on me again.” The Qatar GP had multiple safety car periods, and the last restart helped Sauber. Plus, Zhou executed key overtakes.
It leads one to wonder if Sauber would have extended his contract if this performance had come earlier in the year. It’s key to remember that some of the issues from this season were out of Zhou’s hands.
“People always remember your last few races, you know. Doesn’t matter if I score points in (my) debut or not. I think if you left Formula One in a bad (way), then it’s not good for your future to come back,” Zhou said in Qatar. “So I think these two weekends, I was able to show myself as a relief after a mentally draining season and then happy for the team to score some points. And then for myself even, it’s the best way to put a message for the paddock, and then hopefully I get another chance. Not next season, but the season after.
“Let’s see.”
We’ve seen comebacks happen before in the sport, and the entrance of an 11th team in 2026 adds another two seats up for grabs. (His manager is set to be the team principal.) And, in a way, Zhou looks at this next year as a positive, a way for him to relieve himself of the noise and prepare for a comeback. His hopes are still high for making an F1 return.
“At this period of my career, I think it’s not the right time yet to go into a different category because then it’s always difficult to come back,” Zhou said. “But then also for my side, you know, I want to be in this paddock.”
If he was competing in another series, like Formula E, it could limit his availability to be in the F1 world. He added, “I want to be ready every single weekend, and if there’s a chance to jump in the car, take the absolute full opportunities and try to show what I have.”
Top photo: Sipa USA
