F1 News: Zhou Guanyu Receives Warning From Sauber - "No Room For Error"

Zhou Guanyu has received a warning regarding his performance inconsistency this year.

Sauber's head of trackside engineering, Xevi Pujolar, has warned Zhou Guanyu about his inconsistency as he approaches his third season in Formula 1 in 2024, emphasizing that "there is no margin for error."

The 2023 season saw the team operate under the Alfa Romeo name for the last time as it finished in the ninth position in the standings with a total of 16 points, marking a notable decline of 39 points from 2022.

Guanyu played a role in securing six of those points with three ninth-place finishes, but he was outperformed by his teammate Valtteri Bottas, mainly in qualifying sessions. After a rather inconsistent campaign, Pujolar explained the plan of action to work with Guanyu over the winter break to help him churn consistent results. Speaking to the media, he stated:

“In some conditions, it’s been a struggle a bit more and we’re trying to understand what we can give him with the car and how we can work with the tyres, just to make sure he’s more consistent.

“In some conditions, he is a bit more sensitive to what he is feeling. The differences are not big but in terms of positions they are big, so we need to work on that for next year.

“There is no room for any small drop or mistake.”

Guanyu was thankful that the difficult season ended after a challenging race in Abu Dhabi, where he finished in 17th position. He also revealed that the C43 F1 car's pace suffered due to a lack of upgrades. He said:

“Glad it’s finished, it’s been a very long tough season.

“So obviously, we have things planned quite big over next year. So looking forward to try that out in January.

“A lot of our main rivals from the beginning of the season, they were able to just change massively, probably introduce a new car or B car over the season and made a very good step forward.

“Obviously, we knew we were going to get that plan for next season. So this year was more about suffering the last few races.

“And then of course, you know, it’s been a little bit inconsistent, unpredictable in terms of performance track by track, but we definitely in general don’t really have the pace, especially over the race distance.

“You know, it just seems to be difficult to keep up with the top 10, even the top, like, let’s say 13 guys.”

The Sauber driver added that the 2024 car will be based on an entirely new concept under Technical Director James Key, who moved this year from McLaren. He concluded:

“We’re going to have a completely new car so it’s gonna be a different look. 

“Can’t say more than that.

“But yeah, it’s already planned a few races to go. Everything is going really quite well back home. So, looking forward to try that I get, yeah, and get some rest after afterwards.”