Zhou: “Racist insults when I arrived in F1”. And what a controversy with Bearman

Where will Zhou be in 2025?

The drivers’ market for next season does not seem to be particularly favourable to Guanyu Zhou25 year old Chinese driver of Kick Sauber. The only 12 points obtained in two and a half years with the team based in Switzerland (compared to 59 in the same period for Bottas) are not enough to indicate him as a potential candidate for any of the seats still available for 2025. In fact, Sauber is evaluating other names, including that of his teammate Valtteri Bottas, while in Alpine there seems to be a preference for Jack Doohan.

“I want to stay in F1, but I haven’t thought about a possible role as third driver yet“, Zhou confessed in an interview given to The Raceadding: “My mentality is to get a starting seat, I have a 50% or more chance of getting a seat. On many occasions I was a little bit faster than Bottas. I struggled a bit with my aggressive riding style this year, but in the second part of the championship I will have the updates and things will be fine.”

Discrimination

Zhou he then dedicated a thought to the difficulties he had in arriving in Formula 1: “In 2021 when I signed with Alfa Romeo, I received a lot of racist abuse from people who hadn’t followed my career. I had finished third in F2, winning four races, while now a driver outside the top 10 will have a seat in F1, surrounded by a lot of support. This proves that the prejudices about nationality are real. When you are Asian it is hard to change this mentality, but I do not worry about it“. The reference, not even so veiled, is clearly to Oliver Bearman.
And he concludes, on a note of bitterness: “I don’t think anyone expected a Chinese driver in F1 and I don’t think there will be any more for the next five or ten years.”