In 2022, Valtteri Bottas arrived on the Alfa Romeo-branded Sauber workforce seeking to forge a brand new profession path in Components 1 after being dropped by front-runners Mercedes.
In the meantime Zhou Guanyu arrived in Components 1 searching for to ascertain himself as a grand prix driver. However three years on each discover themselves with out race drives for subsequent season.
Arguably, each drivers didn’t exceed expectations of how they might carry out with the intention to persuade both their present workforce to maintain them or one other to rent them.
Bottas, a 10-times grand prix winner, got here to Alfa Romeo having simply helped Mercedes win the constructors’ championship for the eighth yr in a row. The early indicators have been promising: He began his first race for his new workforce on the third row alongside former workforce mate Lewis Hamilton.
The 49 factors Bottas scored in 2022 was significantly greater than his predecessors managed. However the workforce’s type has dipped since then.
Zhou, in the meantime, scored the identical variety of factors in his first two seasons: six. Given how a lot much less aggressive the workforce was in 2023, this mirrored some progress on Zhou’s half. Throughout that point his share of the workforce’s factors rose from round a tenth to greater than a 3rd.
That pattern continued in 2024 when Zhou was the workforce’s solely points-scorer, however made only a single look within the prime 10, choosing up 4 factors. These got here on one of many workforce’s best weekends of the yr, in Qatar, when Bottas was delayed by a collision with Liam Lawson.
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However although Zhou’s enchancment was discernible, he by no means persistently overcame his extra skilled workforce mate, and his ejection from the grid after three years doesn’t appear to be an injustice. He completed behind Bottas most of the time this yr. The qualifying battle was extra one-sided than ever at 19-4, although that will partly replicate the times on which solely Bottas had Sauber’s newest upgrades.
It’s not troublesome to see why Sauber selected to not retain Zhou, and the identical is true for Bottas. Over three years, he completed forward of Zhou two occasions to at least one. Had the workforce’s efficiency not progressively declined over that interval, the rookie’s factors haul would have appeared extra spectacular, although even then it wouldn’t have made an apparent case for Zhou deserving a fourth season.
Bottas vs Zhou, 2022-24
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Zhou’s efficiency towards Bottas in 2024
Qualifying gaps between Bottas and Zhou in 2024
Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Detrimental worth: Guanyu was quicker; Optimistic worth: Bottas was quicker
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