New season, new cars and new drivers for Alfa Romeo in 2022, with Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou joining the team. This being his first season in Formula 1, Zhou hopes to prove himself and build a solid relationship with the crew.

“I hope to achieve as many points as possible and try to always fight for the points, always getting to Q3. I think that’s the goal for the team,” he explained.

“For the personal side I want to firstly show my abilities, I think that’s what’s very important and I’m ready to put my feet in Formula 1 trying to exploit everything I have,” he went on.

“And secondly to be as a family with Alfa Romeo’s F1 team, to be like a family or friends with your mechanics, engineers, the staff and also teammate is a very important part of motorsport. Spending a lot of time together all over the world and also at the factory, it’s very important that side.”

“I don’t want to be in Formula 1 just for the seek of being here, I want to be here to prove myself and make all the people who support me proud” and “I want to really make the team proud because for me it’s everything that they made the decision to pick me.”

He will be racing in Formula 1 with number 24, the same number that was on the Lakers jersey of basketball legend Kobe Bryant.

“He is a huge inspiration for me,” said Zhou. “I want to bring the Kobe mentality in Formula 1, it means that I have to put a lot of work in. The work doesn’t stop, doesn’t matter how great you are as a race driver you just want to continue to improve yourself.”

Asked about the differences with Formula 2, he had no doubt about the one thing that he felt strongly driving an F1 car: downforce.

“The first time I drove there [Formula 1 testing], I was barely able to move my neck around. To look at your phone you have to move your phone instead of your neck, that’s how incredible the downforce in these new generation of Formula 1 cars is. It’s amazing.”

“The amount of downforce you have in Formula 2 is already quite insane and then you make that step up to Formula 1 it’s just another world. And also braking, how well they are stopping on the pressure of braking.”

Zhou will be the only rookie driver to make his F1 debut this season.

“There is of course a little bit of pressure, but it doesn’t really get to me because I felt more pressure last season having so many people watching me in my Formula 2 end of campaign. That was a lot of pressure, but I think I deal with that pretty well. All these years of racing I was able to adapt myself mentality wise,” he assured.

“Formula 1 is a new experience, a new world I have to get used to especially at the beginning. But I’m ready to follow all these rookies from last year trying to beat them and trying to develop my energy on track.”