Alfa Romeo: “Bottas should be Zhou’s teacher”

Alfa Romeo Team Principal Frederic Vasseur believes Valtteri Bottas would be a good teacher for Guanyu Zhou. The Switzerland-based team is the only one on the grid entering the 2022 season with an all-new driver duo, with Cho and Bottas replacing Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen.

Zhou will be the only entrant on the grid and with new regulations in place, many expect it to be a tough year for him – but Vasseur says he’s not worried. That’s largely because he thinks the 22-year-old has a good mentor by his side.

“I’m not worried about anything,” Wasser told Finnish media. “Zhou is eager to learn. I think he shows exemplary behavior and with Valtteri we have a good teacher at home.”

Helping Zhou isn’t the only way Vasseur believes Bottas’ experience will benefit the team as well. With the new regulations coming into effect, there will be a great deal of unknown factors to the teams early in the season regarding their cars and the rules as a whole.

Bottas’ experience was decisive

With feedback from drivers going to be more important than ever, Vasser chose to sign with Bottas. Vasseur: “We made that choice ourselves. What was important to us was that we would have at least one driver on the team with a lot of experience in Formula 1.”

“I think it’s difficult to build on previous achievements, because we are dealing with a completely new situation. Everything is different, but at least now we have someone who can quickly see where things are going well and where not.”