24-year-old Formula 1 driver is now ‘very popular’ within the team garage

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Alfa Romeo may no longer be on the Formula 1 grid going into the 2024 season, but popular drivers Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas will both be driving for the rebranded Sauber team.

Speaking on The Race F1 Podcast, journalist Edd Straw has been discussing what’s going behind the scenes at the Swiss team.

Team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi has admitted that the rebranding of Sauber might surprise some people heading into next year.

“In Formula One the team name is also depending from commercial partnership,” Alunni Bravi said.

“On the 10th of December, as soon as the FIA will publish the entry list we will of course announce a new team name. I think it will be a surprise.”

Alfa Romeo’s return to Formula 1 didn’t quite go to plan after partnering with Sauber in 2019.

In five years, they only finished outside of the bottom three of the Constructors’ Championship once and that was mainly thanks to Valtteri Bottas.

Since his debut last year, Zhou Guanyu has managed to score just 12 points, with six coming in each campaign.

While Zhou hasn’t hit the ground running at Alfa Romeo, he is a very popular driver in the garage.

That relationship will help him maintain his place in the team, but with a Formula 2 champion now waiting in the wings at the team, he may soon be on borrowed time if he wishes to have an established Formula 1 career.

Zhou very popular among Alfa Romeo team

Speaking about the future of the team’s line-up, Straw said: “You could make the argument that they’ve not taken [Theo] Pourchaire because they had [Valtteri] Bottas on a locked-in contract for 2024. Bottas had an option but it was on Bottas’s side.

“He was always going to take that up because there wasn’t going to be any other better offers.

“So, you could argue that the combination of the commercial appeal of Zhou [Guanyu] and the fact that he’s doing a solid job.

“He’s very popular within the team, a hard worker, works very well with the guys in the garage.

“I just think the only problem with Zhou is that edge of speed probably isn’t there.

“He’s brisk enough, he’s not slow but he’s not super quick, let’s put it that way.”

Zhou’s being popular at Alfa Romeo won’t guarantee his place on the grid, but if the team were convinced by Theo Pourchaire’s F2 championship win, then now would have been a good time to make the switch.

Instead, the young Frenchman will be left to wait in the wings to see what happens during the 2024 shake-up of the grid.

With Sauber set to become Audi’s works team in 2026, they could be eyeing a more high-profile driver to fill that role.

Where that leaves Zhou and Pourchaire is yet to be seen, while it’s hard to imagine Bottas still being in F1 at that stage judging by his performances over the past 12 months.