Even after moving from Ferrari to Cadillac, Guanyu Zhou still has big goals in Formula 1. The Chinese wants to recommend himself to his new employer for a regular place in the premier class.
Former Formula 1 regular driver Guanyu Zhou is aiming to return to the grid. It is his “topmost goal” to “get back on the grid as quickly as possible, get behind the wheel again and race full-time,” he emphasized in an interview with “F1.com”.
“For me, the ultimate goal is to get back to the starting line, and that is also my goal. But to achieve that goal, sometimes you have to wait a bit. You have to show the team what you can do over weeks and months, put in the work, and sometimes an opportunity arises, so I don’t necessarily push for it,” explained the 26-year-old.
For now, Zhou has to be patient anyway. His move from Ferrari to the new Cadillac team was only announced on Monday. For the Americans, as he recently did at Scuderia Ferrari, he will take on the role of reserve driver. The full focus is now on this, said the Chinese.
Zhou came to the premier class in 2022 when he drove for Alfa Romeo as a regular driver alongside Valtteri Bottas. Two years in a row he finished 18th in the overall ranking, and in 2024 he finished 20th in the Kick Sauber. Like Bottas, he then lost his cockpit and moved to Ferrari, where he took on the role of replacement driver behind Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
Valuable Ferrari time: Zhou was able to learn from Hamilton and Leclerc
Not an easy step for Zhou: “It’s a psychological challenge because you watch all the people racing, and some of them you’ve fought with or beaten over the years. You want to be there and you feel like you deserve to be on the starting line with them and fight. That’s probably the difficult side, the psychological side, just watching the race.”
Although he “had to take a step back” in 2025, he still developed further at Ferrari, emphasized Zhou. “Especially last year, I was able to be with two of the best drivers on the grid to see what they do, when they struggle, what they do well, what they did differently, how they adapt and react. I take all of these things into account and I feel like I’ve already become a better driver because of it.”
At Cadillac he is now working again with Bottas, who, together with Sergio Perez, forms Cadillac’s new regular duo.