Co-ordinated by Sérgio Fonseca
Guanyu Zhou is one of the biggest hopes of Chinese motorsport. The Chinese F3 star is returning for his third straight appearance at the Macau Grand Prix. The 19-year-old Ferrari Driver Academy graduate ended his European season with a win at Hockenheim and cannot wait to be back home to carry on the positive momentum he enjoyed in the final part of 2018. He will be the most experienced man of the SJM Theodore Racing by Prema five car team.
With its tight, twisty confines, long straights and heavy braking zones separating the bravest and the best in the racing world from the rest, the Guia Circuit is one Zhou’s favourite circuits.
“Of course Macau is something amazing and I love to do it again and again”, the Shanghainese driver says. “It’s challenging as well as racing once a year in front of my motherland. The atmosphere is always great. Lots of supporters:”
Last year the first ever-Chinese driver admitted by the Prancing Horse young drivers academy finished the race in the eighth place. Will he go for the win this time? “All I want to do is to do the best I can”, he asserts.
Zhou won two FIA F3 European Championship races this year, one of which in the French city of Pau, a street circuit with a lot of resemblances to the Guia Circuit. “Pau is similar to Macau in a way but obviously Macau is more difficult”, he reckons. “I am sure the driving style is quite the same. My win in the street of Pau is already something special. It was tough to achieve so it gave me massive comfort for Macau.”
Zhou’s driver career kicked off in go-karting at the age of eight. He showed skills for the sport and his parents sent him overseas in order to improve his driving ability and learn from the best in Europe. Zhou has been on Ferrari’s books since June 2014, his final year of go-karting when he finished runner-up in the Rotax Senior Euro Challenge and the Rotax Max Senior Winter Cup.
Before stepping up to Formula 3, Zhou finished runner-up in the Italian Formula 4 championship in his first taste of single seater racing. His results have not gone unnoticed. With half world expecting a Chinese driver to compete in F1, some have pinned their hopes on Zhou. Like Renault CEO and automotive guru Carlos Ghosn reckoned earlier in the year, “A Chinese Formula 1 driver would extraordinary because we would have the attention of 1.3 billion consumers.”
Macau’s contribution to the careers of motor sport’s biggest names is part of the legend of the Guia Circuit. A good result in Macau will certainly help Zhou’s cause. “Sure a win in Macau will help”, he says, recalling, “a victory in Macau is something special and you need skills as well as a good car.”
He, like twenty-six other participants in the race, received a good new last month. The FIA World Council approved the proposal for the winner of FIA F3 World Cup to be granted five Super Licence points. Today, forty points are necessary for any young driver to grant a Super License, the passport for the pinnacle of motor racing, the F1.
Zhou is keeping an eye on F1 as he also expects to play a role model for other young Chinese racers. “The motorsports in China is growing up which I am happy to see but we need a Chinese F1 driver. A Chinese driver in top of the game will rise Chinese motorsports a big step ahead. I’ll try everything to make my country proud.”
Whatever happens on the afternoon of 18 November in Macau will not change the world as we know it, but if Zhou achieves his winning goal the face of Chinese motor racing may change forever.
