"When I was a kid, I just loved racing and I wanted to race one field after another. I never thought about whether I would be the first Chinese driver to race in F1, I just wanted to realize my dream. Once, Zhou Guanyu described his F1 dream like this, and today he finally dreamed of becoming "the first person in F1 China".
&nbsp>
Parents bought F2 teams to support
Invest at least 100 million yuan all the way
At the age of 8, Zhou Guanyu got into a two-seater kart for the first time under the guidance of his father, thus starting his career as a driver. For 14 years, he has been moving towards F1 step by step, and behind this is the financial support of his parents who have spared no effort along the way.
In the early years, in order to facilitate Zhou Guanyu's training, Zhou's father specially built a go-kart track for him. According to media reports, Zhou Guanyu's father has 20 companies under his name and has strong assets, including buying him an F2 team in 2019, UNI-Virtuosi. "UNI" stands for "UNIVERSE", and the logo of "UNI" is like a pinyin variant of "yu". It is reported that with the promotion of Zhou Guanyu to F1 in the 2022 season, the team's "UNI" no longer exists.
Some insiders revealed that in Zhou Guanyu's growth path, his parents invested at least 100 million yuan. This sounds astronomical, but it is not surprising in the racing circle, after all, the "predecessor" Cheng Congfu revealed about 10 years ago that his parents spent 100 million yuan on themselves. Also because he did not want to spend his parents' money again, Cheng Congfu, the driver selected by the "McLaren China Plan", had never been able to sit in the cockpit of a McLaren car in the main race because of the sponsorship gap of 15 million euros, and in 2006, he also failed to sign a contract with virgin teams because of sponsorship fees. Ma Qinghua is the second driver closest to the cockpit of F1, and in 2013 he was expected to become the official driver of the F1 HRT, but the disintegration of the team made him f1 dream.
In comparison, Zhou Guanyu is undoubtedly lucky. "Bringing money into the group" is not uncommon in F1, at least nearly 30 million euros of sponsorship has allowed Zhou Guanyu and Chinese racing to enter a new era.
Choose the right one at the intersection of life
There is courage and strategy on the track
Zhou Guanyu began the road of "staying in the ocean" at the age of 12, not only to win on the track, but also to integrate in the culture, and more importantly, small people should take the initiative to enter an unfamiliar circle, which is to decide his current and future workplace.
Stitching in a go-kart accident, or waging a boat to balance racing and learning, that's nothing more. The most difficult thing is interpersonal relationships, the paddock is the world of Europeans, Chinese must pay more effort to succeed, even if Zhou Guanyu became a Ferrari youth driver with his excellent results in the youth karting.
But in F3, he met teammate Mick Schumacher, the world-renowned "son of the car king". Zhou Guanyu's competitiveness obviously put a lot of pressure on Mick, and the team's behavior of praising Mick as the number one driver and paving the way for him to win the annual championship for the "star-making" finally made Zhou Guanyu have a decision: he left Maranello, even if it was like the star workshop of F1, he chose the less famous Renault to ask you to drive the project. This was a turning point in Zhou Guanyu's career, but now it seems that this is a dignified and courageous decision, which also laid the foundation for Zhou Guanyu's success today.
"Some drivers are born into racing families, have a deep background, and may have more resources than those of us who have left home to explore the world of racing. But I want to beat all of them because that would show my true strength. In an interview, Zhou Guanyu said.
In 2019, Zhou Guanyu was promoted to F2. From the 7th and 6th of the year to the current 2nd of the season, he has played steadily and won three championships, making history for Chinese racing. According to the interpretation of F2 senior reporters, Zhou Guanyu's way of playing is very special - he is often anti-tactical, generally the leading drivers will choose the mainstream tactic of first soft (tire) and then hard (tire), and strive to take the initiative at the beginning of the race; and Zhou Guanyu often takes a different path, using first hard and then soft to curb opponents, his victory is not based on hard and the track, often in the maintenance area by tactics to win. This is very distinctive, it can be said that it is very flattering, courageous and strategic.
Three years ago, when talking about the possibility of Zhou Guanyu entering F1, a foreign reporter asserted that "the ship has left". But now, after Alfa Romeo officially announced that Zhou Guanyu will become the official driver of the 2022 season, foreign media have shouted "Chinese is coming".
Yes, Chinese, Zhou Guanyu has written a new history for Chinese racing, and we also expect it to open a new era in the history of racing.
Source: Thoughtful