DOHA – China’s first Formula One driver Guanyu Zhou will not take long to get up to speed when he debuts with Alfa Romeo next season and Australian Oscar Piastri can hope to step up soon as well, Alpine driver Esteban Ocon said.
Zhou, 22, and Ocon are both at Renault-owned Alpine, with the Chinese a test driver.
“It’s fantastic to see him getting to Formula One, I’ve worked with him obviously quite a bit this year, shared an FP1 (practice session) with him in Austria as well, so you know that he was developing very fast into the F1 car,” Ocon told reporters at the Qatar Grand Prix.
“I don’t think it will take him long to get up to speed but I definitely wish him the best,” Ocon added according to Reuters.
Alpine’s double world champion Fernando Alonso said Zhou was “a nice kid” and looked forward to racing him.
Alfa announced the signing on Tuesday, with the Chinese reportedly bringing significant sponsorship from a key market.
He is second to Piastri in the F2 standings but the 20-year-old Australian will be Alpine’s reserve next season without racing.
Ocon, who sat out a year in 2019, sympathised with the Australian but was sure it would also work out for him in the long term.
“I think it’s just a matter of time before Oscar joins us on the grid,” he said. “He’s more than talented. He’s won pretty much all the titles up until now.
“Of course waiting is never a fantastic thing for us drivers but the best is for him to watch how everything is going and that’s what I did, just trying to get as much information as I could.
“Once you are in the seat you know how everything works from the inside. That’s what I’ve done and I’m sure he will probably do the same.”
Piastri defended Zhou after some online critics said the Chinese owed his seat to the backing that came with him.
“He´s second in the championship, he´s got the same amount of wins as me, he led the championship for the first part of the year so he’s certainly not coming in with no results at all,” the Australian told reporters.
Toto Wolff, meanwhile, is fired up and spoiling for a fight as his Mercedes team battle to be Formula One champions for an unprecedented eighth year in a row and Lewis Hamilton is loving it.
Wolff and rival Red Bull boss Christian Horner have cranked up the war of words off track and the Mercedes man was in full flow in Brazil last weekend on a rollercoaster of a winning weekend for his team.
“I love seeing Toto’s fighting spirit,” seven times world champion Hamilton told reporters at the Qatar Grand Prix when asked about Wolff ‘getting hot under the collar’ and whether the stress was taking its toll.
“It makes me so happy. There’s a shot I saw from the last race and it just made me laugh inside, it was so good.
“If he just cared less and was just chilled, it just wouldn’t be… that fire and passion is a part of our infrastructure and our ecosystem and it trickles down from him. He is the leader of the team.
“You want that in your boss, someone that’s out there go-getting and pushing and chasing every millisecond and with you along the way. I love that he stands for what he thinks is right. We’ve grown hugely closer over these years.”
Wolff lit up social media when he angrily pointed a finger at the television camera after Hamilton took his 101st career win in Brazil.
He explained it afterwards by saying “that was just a friendly hello at the race director”.
Hamilton had been sent to the back of the grid after qualifying for the Saturday sprint when his car failed a technical check, and started the main race 10th after an engine penalty.
Wolff was already in a Mercedes-against-the-world mood on Saturday when he swore over the radio to Hamilton after the Briton went from last to fifth in the sprint race.
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