The Swiss Sauber team, which competes in Formula 1 under the name of title sponsor Alfa Romeo, has clarified the cause of Guanyu Zhou’s retirement from the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
On Sunday evening, Xevi Pujolar, Alfa Romeo’s chief engineer at the racetrack, spoke of a “problem in the cooling system”. In the meantime, “Motorsport-Total.com” has asked the team from Hinwil: The reason for this was a defect in the hydraulics of the Alfa Romeo C42.
“I think it’s a problem with Sauber, but I don’t have any details at the moment, but we think it’s on our side,” said Pujolar in Baku. A suspicion that has now been confirmed. The defect was therefore not due to Ferrari’s power unit.
It was a bitter failure for Zhou. The Chinese was just 0.6 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin (on identical tires: Hard with 13 laps) and 2.7 seconds ahead of Haas driver Kevin Magnussen in tenth place in the Grand Prix. Team-mate Valtteri Bottas was 8.8 seconds behind him in 13th position, although the Finn had made one pit stop less.
Seventh place would have been possible for Zhou
Vettel ended up sixth. P7 would therefore have been possible for Zhou. That would have meant his first World Championship points since P10 at the season opener in Bahrain in March. “We’ve seen strong performances before. But Baku would have been a really good race if he had finished it,” Pujolar is convinced.
“He was already doing well in qualifying. Not only compared to Valtteri because he had problems – but also compared to our direct opponents. We have problems being fast on the first lap with new tires. We will have to work on that . Nevertheless, the potential was there to drive in Q3.”
“It’s a very good performance for him,” says Pujolar of Zhou. “He’s making good progress in qualifying.” Because the difference in performance to Bottas could not be explained technically: “Both had the latest expansion stage, the same configuration, the same set-up.” However, something must not have worked properly with Bottas. We are currently still investigating that.