Formula 1: Zhou Guanyu ‘not happy’ with Austrian Grand Prix result, bemoans tyre strategy and track-limit penalty
- Alfa Romeo driver finishes 14th at Red Bull Ring in Spielberg after running most of the race on hard tyres
- Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc holds off Max Verstappen to win at the Red Bull Ring to reignite title race
Tyre issues and a five-second track limit penalty left Zhou Guanyu far from happy with his result at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday, where Charles Leclerc got himself back into the title race.
Lewis Hamilton took third ahead of his Mercedes teammate George Russell in cars that had both needed hefty repairs after crashes in Friday qualifying.
The win was Leclerc’s third of the year and Ferrari’s first at the Red Bull Ring since Michael Schumacher in 2003.
Zhou meanwhile finished 14th in Spielberg, a week after walking away unscathed from a nasty accident at Silverstone.
And while Zhou acknowledged there were some positives to take away from the weekend, highlighting the pace of his Alfa Romeo as one example, he felt there was a lot more potential in the car and bemoaned a strategy that left him on hard tyres for 46 of the 70 laps.
“I feel we had a lot more potential in our car this weekend, so I am not happy with this result,” he said.
“We looked strong yesterday [on Saturday], but today we spent the first part of the race stuck in a train and then struggled with the hard tyre. Once we switched to the mediums, I was a lot more at ease and I felt we were competitive, but by then it was too late to make it back into the points.