Tag: Guanyu Zhou

Sakhir, 26 March 2021: Guanyu Zhou took the first pole position of the season for the second year in a row, going fastest in Sakhir to take the first points of the new campaign during a dramatic final few minutes of the Formula 2 World Championship Race 1 qualifying session. The UNI-Virtuosi man stole first from ART Grand Prix’s Christian Lundgaard by 0.003s on his final tour of the Bahrain International Circuit, with his teammate Felipe Drugovich finishing third.

Lundgaard didn’t make the top 10 in Free Practice, but was straight on the pace in Qualifying, putting in two purple first sectors to leap to the top of the time screen with an early benchmark of 1:43.628.

A late wobble in the final sector meant the Dane’s benchmark was beatable, and Drugovich managed to find the extra bit of time to do just that. The UNI-Virtuosi racer was fastest in Free Practice on the hard tyre and appeared equally as comfortable on the softer compound, stealing P1 by three tenths.

Drugovich’s teammate Zhou started 2020 on pole and was looking for the same outcome one season on. The Alpine junior was the only driver without a time on the board when the field fed back into the pits for a change of rubber, having boldly requested to run in the gap. He didn’t disappoint, bettering his teammate’s lap by 0.022s to replace him in first place.

No sooner had the cars returned to the track, were they having to head back into the pits. The field had just completed their preparation lap when Robert Shwarztman came to a halt down the pit straight and brought out a red flag. The stranded PREMA was swiftly cleared off the track, but just five minutes remained to get a time on the board.

Knowing time was of the essence, Lundgaard flew back out of the traps and got to work regaining control of the session. The Dane gave posted three purple laps, and the nailed the tricky final corner that let him down before, to take first from Zhou.

Amongst the first to get another time on the board, Lundgaard headed back into the pits to await his fate, knowing his tyres were cooked. The ART Man watched on as Ticktum failed and ended up in fourth. The Briton set two green sectors, but got stuck in traffic around the final corner. Jüri Vips and Richard Verschoor both missed out as well, settling for fifth and sixth.

Zhou and Drugovich both beat the chequered flag to give themselves one last shot at beating Lundgaard’s provisional pole time of 1:42.851.

Setting a personal best first sector and a fastest overall second sector, Zhou’s final laptime was better than Lundgaard’s by the finest of margins, knocking off his Alpine academy teammate by three thousandths of a second. Meanwhile, Drugovich’s final tour wasn’t quite as strong and the Brazilian ended up in third, behind Lundgaard.

Further back, Jehan Daruvala managed to take seventh, ahead of reigning Formula 3 champion Oscar Piastri, with Liam Lawson in ninth.

Finishing 10th on his debut, David Beckmann will start Sprint Race 1 from reverse grid pole on Saturday at 1.25pm (local time).

Sochi, 27 Sept 2020: Guanyu Zhou is finally a FIA Formula 2 race winner, but it’s not quite how the UNI-Virtuosi racer would have pictured it, after the Sochi Sprint Race ended early after a collision between Luca Ghiotto and Jack Aitken.

Indian racer Jehan Daruvala, affected by a 5-second penalty finished on P11 as the penalty was applied. Initially, it was confusing because the placings were decided on Lap 5 positions but Jehan was penalised for a Lap 6 incident. Jehan said: “Firstly, glad to see that both drivers are safe after that crash in today’s race! Since the race was classified on Lap 5, and I got my penalty on Lap 6, we think that I should be P5. But we won’t know for sure till later on as it will be an on-going investigation.”

However, the penalty stuck and Jehan later tweeted: “Penalty has stood. So, unfortunately, will not be in the points. Confusing as the drivers who caused the red flag still classified in their positions. Anyways, not much I can do about it but take away the positives from the weekend.”

The duo crashed at Turn 3 on Lap 7 and ended up deep in the barriers. Both drivers walked away safely, but the scale of repairs needed meant that the decision was taken not to restart the race. With more than 25% of the 21 lap race left to run, only half points are awarded to the grid, leaving Zhou with a sense of frustration after a dominant start to the race.

Nikita Mazepin secured his fifth podium of the season at his home event, taking second, while Mick Schumacher claimed his 10th rostrum this year to further enhance his position at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

AS IT HAPPENED

Zhou was calm and composed when the lights went out, incisively pulling away from Mazepin, who was swallowed up by the field and fell to fifth. Aitken posed an immediate threat to Zhou, but the Campos driver’s attempt around the outside of Turn 1 failed to come off.

As has become a regular feature this season, Schumacher made a storming start. The German thundered down the right from eighth and took the inside line into the first turn, coming out of the second corner in fourth.

There was an early Virtual Safety Car period after a collision between Guilherme Samaia and Jake Hughes. The Campos bounced over the kerb at Turn 2, before making contact with Hughes’ left rear and taking them both out of the race.

Mazepin made up the positions he lost after the restart, climbing back up to third, before flinging his Hitech Grand Prix machine past Aitken to retake P2.

Schumacher continued his charge up the field with an extraordinary move on Aitken for third. The PREMA clearly had the pace, but it looked as if he would have to wait until the main straight to overtake. Schumacher had other ideas though, boldly firing down the inside line and into third.

Racing was brought to a halt after a scary moment between Aitken and Ghiotto. The two were battling for fourth position but caught one another at speed and ran off into the wall. Thankfully both drivers walked away safely, but a red flag was needed to recover the cars and mend the barriers.

The marshals got to work clearing away the cars and repairing the barriers, but in the end the damage proved too great to fix in the time available, and the decision was made to abandon the race.

That meant Zhou collected his first win in F2, ahead of Mazepin and Schumacher. Aitken and Ghiotto held on to fourth and fifth due to the countback rule, with the classification being taken from the final lap completed, before the red flag was shown. Yuki Tsunoda claimed sixth, ahead of Callum Ilott, while Dan Ticktum took the final points’ position. A time penalty saw Jehan Daruvala drop to P11.

Schumacher tops the Drivers’ Championship with 191 points, 22 ahead of Ilott. Tsunoda is up to third with 147 points, two ahead of Christian Lundgaard. Robert Shwartzman is fifth on 140 points. In the Teams’ Championship, PREMA are top with 331 points, ahead of UNI-Virtuosi on 288.5. Hitech Grand Prix are third with 244, ahead of ART Grand Prix and Carlin.

KEY QUOTE – GUANYU ZHOU (UNI-VIRTUOSI)

“Finally! I have my first victory in the F2 Championship and it definitely felt good to stand on the top step. I promised the Chinese fans at the start of the season that I would win at least once for the country and we have done that today.

“Obviously, it hurts a little bit because we have only got half points. I think from the beginning of the race up until the red flag, we were quite decent. I think that me and Nikita had good pace compared to everyone else and were pulling away.

“It was nice to see Jack and Luca walk away, so that is a good thing. Obviously going into a little break with a victory is definitely nice.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Schumacher leads the title fight heading into the penultimate round of the season, but it remains all to play for, with less than 50 points separating the top four. The field will now enjoy a short break before heading to Sakhir, Bahrain for a season concluding double-header.

Spielberg (Austria), 3 July 2020: Uni Virtuosi Racing’s Guanyu Zhou, the Renault Junior, set the tone for the inaugural F2 race here, taking the pole position ahead of Felipe Drugovich of MP Motorsport but the Feature Race on Saturday will tell if the Chinese can translate his one-lap pace to race win.

The Indian ace, the 21-year old Jehan Daruvala, will start on P6 for the Feature race behind C Illot, C Lundgaard and Mich Schumacher who finished from P3 to P5, in that order. “P6 is a positive start to my first FIA F2 race and I am really looking forward to the feature race tomorrow because the pace for the front row is definitely there but I could not do the second run because of yellow and red flags,” said the Mumbai-born after the qualifier.

Zhou, the Renault junior is hoping to buck the trend become China’s first F1 driver. Having finished 2019 as F2’s leading rookie, but the season offers a new machine with wider tyres and is anybody’s guess.

The Mumbai-born Indian Jehan who started to fight with Zhou in the initial stages was in the top-3 till the end but finally had to settle for P6 clocking 1:15:028 as yellow flags prevented the last lap push.

Guanyu Zhou got his title challenge off to the perfect start in Spielberg, sealing his second pole position in FIA Formula 2 with a stunning Qualifying performance around the Red Bull Ring.

Behind the Renault junior, there will be a surprise front-row start for rookie Felipe Drugovich, who has enjoyed a superb start to life with MP Motorsport, already qualifying higher in F2 than he did in Formula 3 last season. British outfit UNI-Virtuosi appear to be the team to beat in Austria, with Zhou’s teammate Callum Ilott completing the top three.

Free Practice pacesetter Yuki Tsunoda picked up from where he left off at the start of this afternoon’s session, setting the early pace around the Red Bull Ring. The Carlin driver’s position at the top was short-lived though, as he was soon pipped by his teammate, Jehan Daruvala, and Zhou.

Further back, Giuliano Alesi pushed the limits of the circuit too far and spun off the track, which forced him back to the pits and put his Qualifying session on hold, although he would later return. Zhou had no such issues, taking the time under 1m 15s to climb above Daruvala and into P1.

The field dived into the pits for fresh soft tyres, but their subsequent return to the track was only fleeting, as Marino Sato spun onto the gravel for the second time today and brought out a red flag.

Drugovich had shown potential in Free Practice with a P6 finish, but improved even more in Qualifying to squeeze in a fast lap just ahead of the red flag, which fired him to third.

Just five minutes remained when the lights went green and Christian Lundgaard saw a challenge on Zhou fall just short, with the ART man’s time only good enough for P2. Despite holding onto first, the Chinese racer raised his game, setting two purple sectors to improve his laptime and further cement P1.

Drugovich continued to surprise in the MP Motorsport machine and fired ahead of Lundgaard for second, followed closely by Zhou’s teammate Ilott, whose own tour of the Red Bull Ring took him third.

Time remained for one more lap, and each of Louis Deletraz, Jack Aitken and Tsunoda had all posted purple first sectors, only to be thwarted by a yellow flag when Nikita Mazepin spun out.

That left Zhou to ease his way back to the pits and claim the first pole of 2020 ahead of Drugovich and Ilott. Lundgaard and Mick Schumacher took fourth and fifth, ahead of Daruvala, Luca Ghiotto, Robert Shwartzman, Dan Ticktum and Delétraz.

Zhou will be looking for his maiden victory in F2 when the lights go out in the Feature Race tomorrow, at 4.45pm (local time).