Alpine lets go of Chinese junior on possible move to Alfa Romeo
F1 News
- GPblog.com
There is only one seat left on the 2022 grid. Apart from Valtteri Bottas there are several other drivers who are in contention for the second seat at Alfa Romeo. All of the other nineteen seats have already been allocated in Formula 1 and several talented drivers seem to be in contention for the place with Fred Vasseur's team. With an experienced in the form of Bottas, the team could take a risk with their second driver.
One of the possible options is Guanyu Zhou, the Chinese driver currently with Alpine's junior programme. The executive director of the French team, Marcin Budkowski, explained to Autosport that they are not going to stand in the way of the young Chinese driver, should that deal come to pass. "There are rumours flying around and it's not for me to say anything about it. We are evaluating our options for our drivers in training. We have the academy because we want to train Formula One drivers, F1 drivers for Alpine."
Multiple contenders for F1
"Our training is only successful if we manage to make F1 driver, so we cannot stand in the way of our drivers when they are mature enough for Formula One and ready for the challenge. That would be negative for their career and also looks very bad for our team."
Budkowski hopes that his junior from China can find a place at another team, also because Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon are fixed for a longer period at the team from France.
Another junior from the same program, Oscar Piastri, seems to have better cards for a move to F1. He is currently in the lead for the Formula 2 title, after winning the title in his first season in Formula 3 last year.
"There are very few who managed to do that, so that definitely impresses us. It also influences our decision with what we will do next year, with our reserve driver," the Alpine top executive concluded.