Home favourite Zhou Guanyu and teammate Valtteri Bottas had high hopes coming into the weekend for round five of the 2024 Formula One Championship. Let’s review how the team performed in each session of the weekend.
Friday 19th April
FP1
The team started the weekend very positively, with Bottas and Zhou ending the only practice session in Shanghai in tenth and eleventh respectively. Any result in FP1 was overshadowed by the grass beside the track spontaneously catching fire, causing the session to be temporarily red flagged. The marshals quickly extinguished the blaze, ending the red flag after only five minutes.
Sprint Qualifying
The new sprint weekend format saw Sprint Qualifying moved to
Friday afternoon in Shanghai. Zhou only just scraped through SQ1 in 15th place, while Bottas was in 11th.
Between SQ1 and SQ2 another fire started on the grass next to the track. This delayed the start of SQ2 while the marshals dealt with it. Both cars made it through to SQ3, with Bottas in P7 and Zhou in P10.
SQ3 became a wet session. But it was a continuation of the impressive performance in FP1, with Bottas qualifying in P9, followed by Zhou in P10 in wet conditions. This result pleased the crowd very much as they saw their Shanghai born home favourite drive his way into the top ten.
Saturday 20th April
The team had a promising performance on Saturday this race weekend.
Sprint Race
After sustaining damage on the first lap of the Sprint Race, Bottas
fought for 12th place. Zhou finished the Sprint Race in 9th place, 31 seconds behind the winner Max Verstappen, only just missing out on points.
Qualifying
Zhou was knocked out at the end of Q1, qualifying in 16th place. Being knocked out at this stage of qualifying is not unusual for Sauber this season, but was disappointing due to hopes Zhou would get points at his home grand prix. Bottas, however, drove splendidly to make it through to Q3, eventually securing 10th place.
This was an excellent result considering the team’s form over the course of this season so far, and added an additional air of excitement in the team’s garage. It was the first time this season that Bottas had reached Q3, showing the improvement Stake made this weekend.
Sunday 21st April
Grand Prix
The Shanghai International Circuit provides ample opportunity for overtaking, which meant it was still possible for both drivers to finish Sunday with a great result for the team. Following Bottas’ stellar qualifying and Zhou’s boost from his home crowd, the team were determined to make a great day out of Sunday.
Unfortunately, neither driver finished in the points in this race. Bottas retired on lap 21 following an engine failure. He was the first car to not finish the race, stating on the radio: “engine is gone”. He pulled over to the side of the track with smoke coming out the back of his car which triggered the first safety car of the race.
Initially, Bottas’ incident only triggered the Virtual Safety Car. But after issues with removing his car from the track a full Safety Car was brought out to ensure the situation was being handled in the safest way possible for marshals and drivers.
Zhou, however, did complete the race, ending in P14. He fought with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen throughout the race, coming out on top in the end. Unfortunately, he pitted on lap nine before both safety cars, meaning that he missed out on the pit advantage under safety car for those who waited. On lap 39, Zhou overtook the Williams of Logan Sargeant to reach 14th place, earning much encouragement from his fans in the crowd.
Post-race reaction
At the end of the race, like the podium finishers, he was given a marker to park behind so that he could address the crowd of fans excitedly waiting to show him their appreciation.
Written by Alexandra.
Featured Image Credit: @stakef1team_ks on Twitter
About The Author
Leave a Reply