Alfa Romeo’s rookie driver, Guanyu Zhou, had an incredible outing on Sunday, scoring the first points of his Formula 1 career in Bahrain.
It was a momentous season opener for the team as Valtteri Bottas managed to land in the points as well on his first drive for the Hinwil based outfit.
Zhou finished in tenth and teammate Valtteri Bottas took P6 – marking Alfa Romeo’s first double-point finish since the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Speaking after the race, the 22-year-old Chinese driver said: “Well it’s amazing, I’m so speechless.
“It was so emotional, so intense – not physically but mentally – and to be scoring my first Formula 1 point on my debut is something I would only have dreamed of one year ago or two weeks ago.
“Everything comes so quickly – I’m just so happy, so proud of the team behind me, proud of my teammate, we’ve worked so hard together to maximise the car – and a huge reward for us. It’s a day that I’ll never forget for my whole life.”
Despite falling from 15th to 19th on the opening lap, Zhou managed to fight his way back up to 12th before making his first pit stop of the race.
“I had a problem in Turn 1 – I went into anti-stall, had to go into neutral, and restart everything.
“That was a bit strange, and then I knew my chance to get into the points was very low so I was like, ‘fully attack’, and tried to only put my eyes forward.
“It really means so much that all this happened… I always said I deserve to be here and today I showed that – it’s a big relief.”
Meanwhile, Valtteri Bottas said he was “very happy” about the team’s result from Round one of the 2022 World Championship.
“For me, but most importantly for the team, with two cars in the points, and for Zhou who got points in his first race.
“The race went really well, with the exception of the start: I got a lot of wheelspin and was basically a sitting duck for the first lap, just trying to avoid contact.
“When that stabilised, however, we had really good pace: we didn’t give up, executed a really good strategy and, in the end, completed a good recovery.
“We took it lap by lap as we knew we had the car to get back in the top 10. It is a great way to start the season: there are still things to improve, of course, but we’re just at the first race of the year.
“Our priority was reliability and I am happy we could finish with both cars as the speed is there. Everyone did a good job and we are going in the right direction.”
