Bottas Is The Team's Top Scorer But Zhou Makes A Case For Second Season

Until this season, it had been 6 years since Valtteri Bottas last beat his teammate in a season. He faced none other than Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate as he saw off Felipe Massa comfortably at Williams before heading to Mercedes.

Botts’ experienced driver, who has 10 grand prix wins to his name, was expected to lead the way for rookie team-mate Zhou Guanyun. But Zhou can head into his second season at Alfa Romeo with his head held high. His scoreline may reflect poorly but he has performed well alongside his experienced teammate.

Alfa Romeo 2022 started well. Bottas kept his car on the third row in Bahrain, while Zhou stayed behind. The newcomer quickly whittled that gap down, and while he occasionally added to the half-second mark, that tended to be on uncharted tracks, and as the season progressed he outclassed his teammate.

Indeed, Zhou, who started behind Botts in the first seven races, took the lead in the next three races, helping him to a best of eight times at the Canadian Grand Prix. Zhu was ninth – his best of the year – and things were better in the next round where he passed George Russell when the race started.

Bottas collected the points at the start of the year, taking sixth at Imola

But the Mercedes driver was knocked into the side of the Alfa Romeo seconds later, flipping Zhou into a wheelie and sending him on a wild ride, which ended with the C42 horribly overturned between a wall and a dirt fence. Fortunately, he was not hurt.

During this period, Alfa Romeo’s rivals began to adapt them. Bottas, who scored seven points from the first nine races, failed to score in the next 10 rounds. Zui’s performances were close to his team-mate’s level but his potential for the prize was not as great as it had been earlier in the season, with a lack of confidence hampering his efforts to collect points.

Alfa Romeo introduced an important update at the end of the season which Bottas used to increase points in Mexico and Brazil. He ended the season with a wide margin over Zhou in the Drivers’ Championship, and Alfa Romeo secured sixth place in the championship.

But by all measures, Zhou gave a good account of himself: his qualifying pace improved over the year and the rookie avoided any incidents. Turning that promise into an end point should be his goal for next year.

Advertisement | Become a RaceFans fan and Go ad free

Non-representative comparisons were omitted. Negative value: Bottas was fast; Positive Value: Zhou was fast.

Advertisement | Become a RaceFans fan and Go ad free