Both Xevi Pujolar, Alfa Romeo's head of track engineering, and Frédéric Vasseur, the team boss, said that the Chinese rookie's main virtue is his maturity and also his ability to manage tires
With five points earned in the 2022 Formula 1 season and after his best result in the category at the Canadian Grand Prix, Guanyu Zhou is showing service at Alfa Romeo - at least that is the team's internal view.
In the figure of its head of track engineering, Xevi Pujolar, and also its general manager, Frédéric Vasseur, the team from Hinwil showed satisfaction with the Chinese rookie's performance so far this year. In the most recent F1 race in Montreal, Zhou took the flag at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit in ninth, but was elevated to eighth place after Fernando Alonso's punishment.
"He is building his own weekends in a progressive way. Even in the race he absorbs all the information we give him and is using that to perform what we need him to do with the tires - not only in the race, but in qualifying as well," Pujolar said.
"I think he is also having that approach without making mistakes. If you can avoid incidents, then it helps a lot in building that confidence - race by race - and that has been his quality as well. If he continues like that, he has a great future in Formula One," added the Alfa Romeo engineering chief.
Vasseur, in turn, admitted that he "was worried" about Zhou in the sequence of three straight street circuits on the calendar: Monaco, Azerbaijan and Canada. However, the Alfa Romeo boss stated that even with a great job done so far this season, the tendency is for the Chinese driver to improve even more - since he will be competing in F1 stages in tracks that he already knows from his grassroots days.
"I was a bit worried about the sequence in Monaco, Baku and Montreal, because those are the three most difficult circuits for a rookie in the first part of the season. But in Azerbaijan he did very well. He was a bit unlucky in qualifying because he couldn't get a good lap under the yellow flag. But in the end, the performance was 'there' in the race. He always had a good car and tire management," Vasseur praised.
"You have to separate the performance of the drivers' cars and their results. I think in Baku, for example, Zhou had great pace - he was battling for positions with Vettel before he dropped out. The performance 'was there', but if you don't have reliability in the car, you won't score points. I'm convinced that once we get back to the tracks he already knows, he will perform even better. But I am more than happy with the work he has done so far," added the Alfa Romeo boss.