When Guanyu Zhou was announced as the second driver for Alfa Romeo in F1 in 2022, it certainly raised a few eyebrows. The Chinese driver has had a somewhat respectable Formula 2 career, having won three races in 2021 and is one of the title contenders. However, the Chinese driver has a problem in that current Alpine academy stablemate, Oscar Piastri, has completely wiped the floor with him and now sits some 64.5 points behind the Australian driver in the F2 championship.
This is where the eyebrows have been raised. Zhou had been seen as Piastri’s main challenger to the F2 title this year, but now Prema teammate to Piastri Robert Schwartzman is in second place in the standings. And yet somehow, Piastri has found himself set for just an Alpine F1 reserve role in 2022 whilst Zhou was released from Alpine to take the F1 seat at Alfa Romeo alongside Valtteri Bottas. Zhou has had a reasonable F2 career thus far but what Piastri has done shows it is a major injustice that, as the man set to become F2 champion, has not got a race seat lined up in F1 for 2022.
Piastri The First Year Wonder
This is Piastri’s first year in the Formula 2 category. This follows up from his sole year in the FIA Formula 3 championship in 2020, and a couple of years in the Formula Renault Eurocup series prior to that. It's worth stressing, as well at this point, that Piastri won the title in his second season in the Formula Renault Eurocup before then winning the F3 title in his maiden season in that series. That was a staggering achievement when you have the likes of Theo Pourchaire and Logan Sergeant also racing in that category.
Fast-forward to 2021 and Piastri had a solid opening weekend to his F2 campaign, taking fifth in the Bahrain sprint race opener and then winning the second sprint race. A 19th place finish was not ideal in the feature race, but since then, he has racked up five wins so far in the F2 season and is miles ahead of Zhou and teammate Schwartzman in the standings. Plus, the Saudi Arabia round marked his fourth pole position in a row. If he wins the Formula 2 title at the end of the year, he will have won three titles in three consecutive years.
Zhou’s Three Seasons In F2
It might seem unfair in some ways to compare Piastri to Zhou, but this is the man that ultimately took the last seat on the 2022 F1 grid. And it certainly hasn’t been a terrible junior career. He won the F3 Asian Series in 2021, and was second in the Italian F4 championship in 2014. But those are the only major feeder series results to speak of. He finished 7th and 6th in his first two years of F2, taking a win at Sochi in 2020 and then three more wins in 2021 to currently sit 3rd in the standings.
Heres the thing, though. Zhou has been much more inconsistent than Piastri. And in a longer junior career, has won fewer titles. Plus, in three years of F2, he was won four races. Piastri has won five in one season with four poles, and is likely to add another win to his tally in Abu Dhabi at least. And given he is nearly 70 points clear of Zhou, it's no wonder that many F1 fans were left bewildered by Alfa Romeo’s decision-making process.
Money Does Indeed Talk
That was until everyone realized that Zhou does bring an awful lot of backing to the table, and of course for F1 to tap into the market in China, Zhou’s appointment is important. We must stress Zhou is not a bad driver. He can still haul a car around a racetrack, and he is a very likeable guy. But for all the deriding Nikita Mazepin gets as a driver, the Russian finished ahead of Zhou in the standings in F2 in 2020 in fifth place. Although it must be stressed, Mazepin hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory as a person, but that’s another discussion entirely. As a driver, Mazepin beat Zhou in 2020. The standings just show that.
Piastri Certainly Deserved Better
Piastri has done everything he can to get an F1 seat, save of having several million dollars in backing to back up his talent. He is surely set to clinch F2 with one of the biggest points gaps to second place in the series history, and yet he is going to spend 2022 not even racing in another category. He is eyeing a seat on the F1 grid for 2023 but it's difficult to know where that may be. At Alpine alone, Esteban Ocon is on a long-term deal and there is no reason to think the team won’t keep Fernando Alonso either. Piastri is more than worthy of an F1 drive, and it’s a crying shame he will enter 2022 not on the Formula 1 grid.
Sources: Formula 2, F1 Lead, CGTN, Kennol, ASNMP, Formula 1