While the transfer scene is slowly getting set up for the 2025 season, Sauber/Audi has already advanced its pawns, by formalizing Nico Hulkenberg for next year, then for 2026, when the Swiss structure will definitively come under the control Of the manufacturer.
An announcement which now leaves only one seat vacant at Sauber for 2025, and which inevitably implies the departure of one of the two drivers currently engaged by the Hinwil structure, Valtteri Bottas And Zhou Guanyuboth at the end of their contracts at the end of the 2024 campaign.
Zhou, currently in his third season in F1, was asked about his future prospects on Thursday, ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. “I try to always focus on what is best in terms of a long-term project that gives me great motivation,” said the Shanghai native. “I feel comfortable enough to stay on the starting grid next year.”
“I feel like it’s still a little early,” he tempers, however. “Of course, for us as drivers it’s not an easy process, the last few races let’s say a driver already takes the seat for the coming years, but that hasn’t really changed my approach. “
“I always try to give everything I have on the track because I want to show people that I am capable of doing this for my future. That’s the most important thing. It’s a big driver market that could change next year, so I think we’ll take every opportunity and try to see what’s best for me and my future in F1.”
A return to Alpine in sight?
Renault Sport Academy driver, then Alpine Academy in Formula 2, from 2019 to 2021, Zhou Guanyu left the fold of the French manufacturer, with whom he took part in his first tests in F1, to join Alfa Romeo Sauber at the start of the 2022 season.
Today, he is associated with rumors which see him return under the colors of Alpine in 2025, in case Pierre Gasly or Esteban Oconwhose contracts will also expire at the end of the 2024 season, will not leave the French team next year.
Guanyu Zhou has already worn the colors of Alpine in the past, as a test driver.
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Zhou does not rule out this hypothesis, and admits to having kept good relations with his former employer. For his part, he should welcome the arrival of a Chinese driver, whose popularity has exploded in his country, as demonstrated by the enthusiasm of supporters towards him during the last Chinese Grand Prix.
“I left Renault not because we fell out, because I think it happened smoothly, but simply because there was only one place available, and that was Sauber/Alfa Romeo , so they released me”, he added.
“And that’s sort of the end of my contract with the Academy that promoted me to F1. So yeah, I think the relationship is still there. And in terms of opportunities, I think there’s in a. But how much? I’m not sure. It’s too early to say, but of course I’m looking to see what works best for me.”
With Frankie Mao, comments collected by Mandi Curi
