This weekend’s British Grand Prix cannot come soon enough for Zhou Guanyu, who is ready to build on the “big confidence boost” he got from the best result of his short career at the previous race in Montreal. The Alfa Romeo driver secured his second points haul of the season with his eighth place at the Canadian Grand Prix, a result that came on the back of a frustrating period where he was forced to retire three times in four outings. Zhou Guanyu with a smooth move on Sebastian Vettel into Turn 1 👌 #CanadianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/r3bSEn9MW7 — Formula 1 (@F1) June 22, 2022 But with the team feeling they have turned a corner when it comes to the car’s reliability, boss Frédéric Vasseur said there was “no reason” his drivers couldn’t compete at what he called a “challenging track” at Silverstone. “We need to keep working hard and not let ourselves be carried away: we know we’re locked in a very tight fight and each qualifying and race will be decided on small details,” Vasseur said. While Zhou is not one for getting carried away, he said the best result of his rookie season was concrete evidence of the “progress I have made in the nine races since my debut”. Although there were questions over Alfa’s reasons for handing Zhou a seat for this season, the Chinese driver’s point-winning debut in Bahrain and his continued improvement during qualifying, where he reached the third stage for the first time in Montreal, have answered many of those. With teammate Valtteri Bottas consistently finishing in the points, Alfa are sixth in the constructor standings and Zhou said his focus was to “continue building” on his recent success and “to keep bringing points to the team”. His next chance comes on Sunday, at a race steeped in history, not least for Alfa Romeo. At the first Formula One championship race at Silverstone in 1950, Alfa cars came home in first, second and third, courtesy of Nino Farina, Luigi Fagioli and Reg Parnell. “Driving in Silverstone will be quite special,” Zhou said. “It’s one of the historical tracks in the calendar, one that I’ve always wanted to drive in an F1 car as it’s really a place that gets the best out of these machines.” The circuit is also one that Zhou has fond memories of, having finished on the podium three times there during his Formula 2 career, including winning last year’s feature race. “I’d love to add some more happy moments this weekend,” he said. “I think we have all it takes to have another good result but, as always, we will need to execute our weekend perfectly to be ahead of our closest rivals.”