First points of the season for Zhou
On the occasion of the previous edition of the Australian Grand Prix, Guanyu Zhou came very close to finishing in the points after his F1 debut finished in the top 10 in Bahrain. This year, however, the Chinese Alfa Romeo driver managed to achieve the coveted goal on the Albert Park circuit, which has become the site of his first points of the season for 2023. ninth place obtained at the end of a very solid performance by the number 24 of Alfa Romeo, further rewarded in the final stages by a second restart after the red flag which favored his placement in the top ten.
Complex weekend, but no mistakes
With this result, the Swiss team takes advantage of the double knockout at Haas to move to -1 in the constructors’ standings from the US team, momentarily in seventh position waiting for the next GP of Azerbaijan, scheduled for the end of April: “Ninth position at the checkered flag is a good result, especially if you consider where we started from and the difficult weekend we had Zhou said. there are positive aspects: we had a great start, on which we worked a lot, and we didn’t make any mistakes in a race where there were many crashes. We stayed out of trouble and I was able to keep the pressure on Magnussen in the later stages which ultimately allowed us to score points. The conditions were difficult, the track temperature was very low, but we made no mistakes, and that’s what matters. These are my first points of the year, a nice reward on a difficult track like Melbourne. Now we have to keep improving and we hope to add more points in Baku, and beyond.”
Bottas more unfortunate
Valtteri Bottas, on the other hand, failed in his goal of reaching the points zone, still dry after the disappointment of the last Saudi Arabian GP. Differently from Jeddah, this time the Finnish driver was very close to the first half of the standings, however finishing in eleventh position: “I am happy for Zhou and the team to be back with two points from what can only be described as a chaotic race – commented – my afternoon was pretty lonely and without much action, until it all kicked loose towards the end. We decided to risk it at the start and I pitted for the hard tires on the first lap: the plan was to keep them for the whole race, but then the red flag prevented me from taking any big advantage. Later, when the Safety Car came out, we went for the softs, but once again the red flag messed up my strategy. It’s been a difficult weekend, we were off the pace from the start, but we’ll make sure to analyze the situation before the next race. I’m happy to have some time before Baku, to get back to work and be more competitive again”.
Standings waiting for Baku
Formula 1 will now face an unprecedented stop period of almost a month, thanks to the cancellation of the Chinese Grand Prix from the calendar and the failure to replace it. The weekend, scheduled from 28 to 30 April, will start with the former Mercedes driver in 11th position in the driver standings, on a par with the two Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly and with Oscar Piastri, who also scored his first points finish in Australia. Further back Zhou, 15th and with 2 points.
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