Zhou cannot explain why he loses so much to Bottas

More than a third of the season is already behind us and Sauber still has no points to its name. In Canada, the future Audi factory team also failed to earn anything, but Valtteri Bottas at least made some attempts, stayed in the middle of the pack and finished 13th.

The difference in results between him and Guanyu Zhou, his partner, is more than noticeable. Moreover, the Chinese racer cannot explain the reasons for such a delay. If the French press recently assumed that he might end up at Alpine next year, because the Renault group had concluded a long-term cooperation contract with Geely, an automotive giant from the Middle Kingdom, such predictions are no longer heard.

At the same time, the Finn continues to work calmly, although the Sauber car leaves a lot to be desired, and his comment sounds very logical: “We have to keep improving the C44, make it faster, because it is not that difficult. space science.”

But Zhou didn’t succeed at all in Montreal – nor on a dry track, let alone one soaked in June rain. “I won’t say I have serious problems, but I just can’t reach the required grip level. It seems simple in words, but it is impossible to make progress,” he admitted.

During training, Guanyu crashed his car twice: first on Friday, when the asphalt was wet, he could not cope with hydroplaning. On Saturday, just five minutes after the final practice session, when everyone was on slicks, he flew off the track again, insisting that the corner happened completely unexpectedly because the car had hit a bump.

As a result, unable to work normally on the track, he had an even harder time in qualifying and ended up on the last line of the protocol, losing even to his partner by almost a second.

On Sunday the problems continued, after a third of the distance he lost a lap to the leader and at the finish he was almost two laps behind, after which he said he had no confidence in braking and cornering. Admittedly, he was also unlucky at the pit stop: for some reason that the team had not explained, Zhou was in the pits for 42.26 seconds, and during this time the tires of his C44 naturally managed to cool down .

The Swiss press already suggests that Sauber’s problem is not only in the car and the wrong actions of the racing team, but also in the too harmonious atmosphere in the team, where the teammates really get along well with each other.

“A little tension between the riders could certainly liven things up. Harmony has never been the best way to improve results,” writes the tabloid Blick. And he mentions Alpine as an example: after the incident in Monaco, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon finally had a falling out, but against this emotional background both earned points in Montreal.

The author of the text in Blick, referring to conversations in the paddock, also adds that Carlos Sainz’s contract with Williams could be announced as early as this week. If this is true, this decision of his can be considered a kind of vote of no confidence against the Sauber-Audi project, where they seriously counted on cooperation with the Spaniard.

Ironically, by the way, it was Carlos’ mistake on the 54th lap of the race that caused a collision between his Ferrari and Alex Albon’s Williams, and both lost the chance to earn points, although they could become partners next year .

But let’s return to Zhou. Sauber is clearly not going to extend his contract, continuing the collaboration with Valtteri Bottas also seems an unlikely scenario, but according to rumors in Hinwil (if Sainz really refuses to move to this team) a choice will be made between Pierre Gasly and the Brazilian Felipe Drugovich, the 2022 Formula 2 championship year, and now reserve driver for Aston Martin.

However, there is also Liam Lawson, whose contract with Red Bull expires this season, and there are many arguments to be made that the New Zealand driver is a much more promising candidate than the same Guanyu…