Over his third season in F1 Zhou demonstrated he’s a succesful driver who may be relied on to deliver his automotive house, however too typically fails to ship over a single flying lap. Though he took the group’s solely factors rating of the season, there was no shock when he (like his group mate) was proven the door on the finish of the 12 months.
Zhou most likely didn’t anticipate to face so robust a season after the primary race, the place he climbed from seventeenth to complete one place exterior the factors. The group was hampered by issues with its pit cease gear within the opening races and had good motive to anticipate higher days forward as soon as that was sorted.
Nevertheless Zhou compromised his probabilities of choosing up factors at this early stage with a collection of incidents: A crash in Jeddah, damaging his automotive in qualifying at Melbourne and a mistake on his flying lap in China. Canada was a low level, Zhou crashing twice through the build-up to qualifying.
He normally began races behind his group mate, which left him at a right away drawback. In Zhou’s defence, Sauber’s updates normally went to his extra skilled group mate, although at instances this didn’t appear to assist Valtteri Bottas all that a lot.
Zhou Guanyu
Finest
Worst
GP begin
12
20 (x6)
GP end
8
20
Factors
4
This was notably true through the center a part of the season, at which level Sauber virtually invariably had the slowest automotive, having been out-developed by their rivals. When that improved later within the 12 months, Zhou produced a few noteworthy performances.
His points-scoring run in Qatar was the obvious, although it bears mentioning his group mate was hit by a rival early on. Even so Zhou had out-qualified Bottas and put a go on Tsunoda on his technique to a wonderful eighth place. Zhou’s less-heralded and unrewarded drive in Las Vegas was one other late spotlight, as he handed Franco Colapinto on the ultimate lap.
He normally proved a protected pair of arms on race day, although his spin throughout the USA Grand Prix was a noteworthy exception. That apart, Zhou’s season was extra disappointing than poor.
RaceFans’ driver rankings are based mostly partly on the scores awarded to drivers for his or her performances in every spherical in addition to different components.
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