"The Pitstop" - Zhou Guanyu pinpoints the moment the F1 Saudi Arabian GP completely fell apart
Zhou Guanyu reckons his slow pitstop cost him a points finish in the race. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda, the Sauber driver said his race involved a lot of pace management from start to finish.
Qualifying at the bottom of the grid after a crash, Zhou Guanyu had a long battle ahead of him to finish in the points. While he was running at the front of the second half of the midfield, a slow pitstop pushed him to the back of the grid. The Chinese driver eventually finished 18th behind his teammate Valterri Bottas. He felt that if it weren’t for the pitstop, they could have finished P11.
Asked by Sportskeeda where the race fell away for him, Zhou Guanyu replied:
“The Pitstop”
Asked what the problem was at the pitstop, he said:
“I don't know yet. I need to get some explanation after but it's clear we need to fix the issue.”
Asked if it was infuriating given that he was running in the points at a certain stage, Zhou Guanyu said:
“I mean yeah, I think without the issue, we'd be P11 today, which I think was a strong race graph and come back. Considering where he (Hulkenberg) was starting compared to me and a lot of management required during the whole thing as well, especially in the beginning. But we were having a very strong race graph showed again on Saturday. So yeah unfortunately things changed one it's not out of your control basically.”
Zhou Guanyu believes that it is important to make minimum mistakes to finish P10 in the race
With ten contenders for the tenth position, Zhou Guanyu believes it is important to maximise every opportunity. He felt that even if nobody crashed in the race, the highest they could have been was P11. He felt that making minimal mistakes would be the key to scoring points in the future.
Asked if it is even more difficult to be P10 given the multiple contenders for that spot, he said while speaking to media including Sportskeeda:
“Yeah. Exactly I mean if nobody crashed in the top five, I think we'll be 11 or whoever is the best will be 11. Which, you know was the case in Bahrain. And today, if one last time was out, and then one guy can be making a fruitful point. So yeah, we need to give everything and maximize making sure no mistakes.”
Over the course of the 2023 season and the two races so far, Guanyu Zhou has pretty much had the edge over Valtteri Bottas. He finished 11th in the race in Bahrain while his teammate was 19th. In Saudi Arabia, he was just behind his teammate, but reckons he could have been further up if it weren’t for his pitstop.
Similar to RB, Williams and Alpine, Sauber are yet to score their first points of the season. But rivals Haas have managed to eclipse them by scoring a single point.