24-year-old Formula 1 star now seen as the ideal Gene Haas driver for 2025

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Haas look set to go in a different direction after parting ways with Guenther Steiner last week and Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu might be the perfect driver to lead them into 2025.

Zhou Guanyu currently occupies one of the most coveted seats in Formula 1 despite Alfa Romeo finishing second-last in the Constructors’ Championship last year.

His future at the team is far from certain though and journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm has told The Race Podcast that the Chinese driver could end up making the switch to another back marker next year.

It sounds bizarre to an outsider to suggest that drivers might look to move to the Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber considering how slow they were last year.

Zhou and Valtteri Bottas both struggled to feature in the points for much of the season.

However, Audi take full control of the team in 2026 and all of a sudden they become a much more enticing prospect.

Bottas has already made his feelings clear that he would like to stay with the team, while both Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg have been touted as potential signings.

This leaves Zhou Guanyu in a difficult position should he want to continue in Formula 1.

It’s now been suggested that Zhou might be the perfect driver for Gene Haas heading into 2025.

Both Kevin Magnussen and Hulkenberg are out of contract at the end of the year, with the Dane in particular under pressure.

That could open up a spot for the 24-year-old and he may even be the senior driver in the team despite only having two seasons of experience under his belt currently.

Haas switch could make perfect sense for Zhou in 2025

Speaking about Zhou’s future, Mitchell-Malm said: “I was just about to say, I think he makes perfect sense for Gene Haas’s version of what an F1 team needs to be.

“If that’s an F1 team that’s not going to get investment from its owner, it’s got to get its investment from somewhere.

“I can 100% see a world whereby someone like Moneygram doesn’t want to be a part of Guenther Steiner-less Haas going forward and that’s a shortfall that’s going to have to be made up somewhere.

“I genuinely don’t think that team is as appealing commercially because I just don’t see how it’s going to get talked about and get any TV coverage without Steiner because it’s pretty much the only interesting thing about them.

“So, I can absolutely see Zhou slotting into Haas as like the more experienced driver and then Ollie Bearman being the interesting left field, high potential choice.”

The combination of Zhou and Ollie Bearman at Haas in 2025 would make them a more interesting team to follow from the outside.

The young Brit appears to have been lined up for a drive there for some time by Ferrari and everyone loves watching how a rookie is going to perform.

Zhou has struggled to impress during his two years in F1 and a move to Haas might make that even more difficult.

But when you’re not setting the timing sheet alight, you have to take any seat you can get to stay on the grid.