{"id":18997,"date":"2024-03-05T03:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T08:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=18997"},"modified":"2024-03-05T03:40:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T08:40:00","slug":"zhou-guanyu-boosts-contract-hopes-with-strong-bahrain-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/05\/zhou-guanyu-boosts-contract-hopes-with-strong-bahrain-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Zhou Guanyu boosts contract hopes with strong Bahrain drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Zhou Guanyu was one of the stand-out drives from Bahrain, which will be critical to replicate ahead of contract talks this year.<\/h3>\n<p>Perhaps it is premature to discuss Zhou Guanyu&#8217;s contract at this stage of 2024. After all, there are still twenty-three rounds of the F1 season to complete. With that said, every performance is critical in such a highly competitive field.<\/p>\n<p>Both Sauber drivers are on expiring deals, increasing the importance of their efforts in the upcoming months.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Swiss outfit produced a rather uninspiring machine, giving Zhou and Bottas very limited chances to score points.<\/p>\n<p>This subsequently impacted their chances of producing noteworthy performances.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst this, in theory, should not impact how teams perceive drivers &#8211; a faster car is always beneficial.<\/p>\n<p>For this reason, Zhou deserves tremendous praise for making waves with his P11 finish at this year&#8217;s Bahrain GP.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"eHvLAqSySQR1auFf2c2-kg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2046033829\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'eHvLAqSySQR1auFf2c2-kg',sig:'enKkX5yvtZ9MYjGTEgkjjF0jeVk_rVoE7T9hbg_bgOU=',w:'594px',h:'379px',items:'2046033829',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Zhou delivers a near-perfect race<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The 24-year-old started from 17th place last Saturday, having qualified just 0.001 behind his teammate.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Chinese driver quickly put himself in contention for points.<\/p>\n<p>After a strong start and producing very competitive laps on the hard tyres, Zhou was in a battle with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/04\/fernando-alonso-camp-probes-red-bull-interest\/\" target=\"_self\">Aston Martin&#8217;s<\/a> Lance Stroll for P10.<\/p>\n<p>In most previous F1 seasons, a DNF from the front-runners would have pushed Zhou into the points.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/02\/why-haas-now-have-the-attention-of-formula-1s-midfield\/\" target=\"_self\">this year&#8217;s midfield pack,<\/a> reliability is extremely strong across the grid.<\/p>\n<p>This means that (provided the top 5 teams execute clean races) the top 10 will be very difficult to penetrate.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Zhuo&#8217;s performance in Bahrain is not inconsequential.<\/p>\n<p>With Sauber linked to the likes of Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg, there is no shortage of pressure for Stake F1 Team&#8217;s driver line-up.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"fp8AVfj1SflLujv2WNe-uA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2039065704\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'fp8AVfj1SflLujv2WNe-uA',sig:'PBGDjF-IYZ1Pn3ZjgfSc4J1z-SNTsiqlwrVJSP8cL28=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2039065704',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The early speed shown by junior driver Zane Maloney in Formula 2 is yet another factor to consider.<\/p>\n<p>Amidst such strong competition, the bar must be raised by the team&#8217;s existing duo.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst a larger sample size is necessary, Zhou appears to be responding in the best possible way to the hyper-competitive F1 market.<\/p>\n<p>Team Representative Alunni Bravi was full of praise for his &#8220;strong drive&#8221; in Sakhir.<\/p>\n<p>This will serve as a good platform to build upon in the upcoming rounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zhou Guanyu was one of the stand-out drives from Bahrain, which will be critical to replicate ahead of contract talks this year. Perhaps it is premature to discuss Zhou Guanyu&#8217;s contract at this stage of 2024. After all, there are still twenty-three rounds of the F1 season to complete. With that said, every performance is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":18998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,542,68,23,345,1688],"class_list":["post-18997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-bahrain-gp","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-sauber","tag-zhou-guanyu"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}