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Zhou's dream began with pushing a toy car on the couch, and after showing his talent, he traveled to Europe to face the world's fiercest racing competition. This road is not easy, Zhou Guanyu knows that it is not easy to realize his dream, but he has never doubted his dream.
"I want to be the best driver in the world," Zhou Guanyu stressed several times.
Through hard work and talent to deliver on opportunities, the 23-year-old is as vibrant as the rising sun, giving all Chinese fans a steady stream of surprises and hopes.
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Zhou Guanyu's second F1 season starts in January 2023. For motorsport watchers around the world, this is Zhou's most crucial season: F1 has never lacked rookies, but only a handful of drivers can stay in the paddock for long.
Getting into F1 and staying in F1 are two different stories. Regarding the former, Zhou Guanyu said it beautifully: he scored points in the first race, went on to earn two more points, and also beat teammate Bottas seven times in qualifying, the runner-up in F1 in 2019. Since then, the world has raised expectations for the second story: a mature and reliable young driver who has the opportunity to grow into a driver who can compete alongside Bottas, and expects him to realize his full talent with hard work and opportunity.
The outside world is not only expected to produce Zhou Guanyu's results, but also to expand the popularity of F1 racing in China, like another Shanghai athlete, Yao Ming.
In the first half of last year's season, Zhou Guanyu took a conservative stance to explore his position in the F1 paddock, cautiously improving his skills, and won himself the space to take the initiative in the second half of the season. "His biggest advantage this year is that he hasn't made any mistakes. As a rookie, this is almost impossible to guarantee, and it's a sport where it's easy to try too much, try too hard, and make sillies. Bottas commented, "His technical knowledge is getting better and better, and he is becoming more and more confident in choosing the right car setup for him. ”
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In 2004, 5-year-old Shanghai boy Zhou Guanyu watched Rubens Barrichello surpass Fernando Alonso at the Shanghai International Circuit to win his first F1 Chinese Grand Prix. But Alonso is the hero of Zhou, who has supported Alonso since 2005 and left a photo of him waving Alonso flag at the Shanghai station that year. The photo went viral last year: a Shanghai boy competing with an idol he had supported for seventeen years.
"When I was a kid, everyone loved Michael Schumacher but only Alonso was able to beat him at the time, and I thought it was special. Look at his career: he has always been the best driver in his team, which always motivates me to give my best at all times. Zhou Guanyu said.
Zhou Guanyu has some obvious Chinese qualities, such as resilience and high diligence. Since the academy, he has been accustomed to scheduling his training to be busy 24/7 so that he does not feel homesick or lonely. "I'm used to this rhythm of life, I've been busy with games and work, and it's good to be competitive."
The road to F1 was not easy, and he felt he was one step away from stepping into the F1 paddock, but it was far away: he had a smooth start in F2, but suffered a number of mechanical problems the following year, until the third year, when he won two races and ended up third of the season. With this result, he received an FIA Super Driver's License and the opportunity to join the Alfa Romeo F1 Team.
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On Zhou Guanyu's social media, the photo in Shanghai at the end of 2022 was set to the top: "2 years later, back home!" When asked several times abroad how to relax yourself, Zhou Guanyu said that the real way to relax is to go home and return to Shanghai.
Zhou Guanyu drives cars all over the world, and he believes that Shanghai is the best city in the world. This time back home, he went straight to flatbread, fritters and potstickers, the snacks he missed the most in the past two years. "Every time I return to China, I have to order fritters for the first two meals, which is the taste of my hometown, the breakfast I had before school when I was a child."
He made a bucket list of trips with friends, gatherings with loved ones, and a trip to Disney. At the same time, he feels that this return to China is much busier than in the past, and the value of "Zhou Guanyu" is accelerating. At last year's Singapore station, Zhou Guanyu was blocked outside the paddock, and on social media, netizens around the world happily posted photos with Zhou, even in Europe, Zhou Guanyu is easily recognized by young international students. "Xiao Zhou Chao is kind! People are super good", someone described the chance encounter with Zhou Guanyu. "This time back in Shanghai, you can't go to places like Xintiandi, you have to go to places where there are not many young people." Zhou Guanyu changed his tone, "It is true that sometimes there is less personal space, but it allows everyone to know me and proves that I am recognized by everyone in my field." I don't have anything special to change in my daily life, so let's be myself according to my original intention."
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Zhou Guanyu's original intention began with "racing" on the sofa. Before officially getting into go-karts at the age of 8, he collected many small car models. Once he has the opportunity to choose a gift, Zhou Guanyu always asks for a car model. He grabbed these undriven model cars with his hands and sprinted, cornered, and overtook on the couch, paired with homemade sound effects to create an event where you chase me. The model cars are now stored in boxes at home, and the sofa was replaced within two years: because Zhou Guanyu pushed the model car hard, scratching the leather surface of the sofa a few times. Primary school student Zhou Guanyu also likes to go to the arcade to drive racing. In his spare time with his parents' permission, he drove game racing cars non-stop in the game store, faster than all the adults.
In 2007, Zhou Guanyu began to get involved in karting, and in five years he won all the major go-kart events in China. In 2012, with the support of his parents, Zhou Guanyu moved to the UK to learn racing. While studying in Sheffield, he practiced go-karting while learning about culture. He was the only Chinese at school, and his classmates were curious about him, asking if he would become an F1 driver in the future, and if he would be a driver like Hamilton in ten or twenty years. "At the time I replied that I hoped because I didn't know if my future would work, but it was definitely towards my goal of being an F1 driver." Zhou Guanyu recalled.
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After winning multiple Karting World Championships and finishing third in the World Finals, Zhou signed with Ferrari Junior Driver Academy in 2014, a training ground for racing stars, while Zhou Guanyu was the first professional driver in Asia to sign with the youth training system of a top F1 manufacturer. He honed three years of "solitude" in the Italian town of Maranello – Ferrari's headquarters: life was only about himself and the car.
"There are only three or four restaurants in town, all Italian, no Chinese. A few years ago in England, my mother accompanied me, and when I came to Italy, I was relatively old and basically lived alone. Those three years were probably the most difficult and were the real grind. Many times it can feel lonely. Every day from morning to 5pm is training, weekend races, chatting with friends when not training, playing racing games on PS to pass the time. Then I moved to the Renault Academy and returned to the UK, and at that time I felt a lot better in form, and I was able to break through myself in F2 and have a brilliant performance.
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Zhou Guanyu's first go-kart race actually suffered an accident. His parents asked him if you wanted to continue racing, and Zhou Guanyu replied that he wanted to continue racing. "It hurts, but I really want to race. It may be surprising that many things have not been tried, but if it fails or some accident occurs, the injured person may choose to give up. But on the contrary, that's probably why I've gone from racing on the couch, to go-karts, and then to professional racing. ”
For Zhou Guanyu, the most important experience gained from domestic go-kart is that he is always the youngest runner in his class and always the fastest runner, and this experience of beating the older runners has greatly boosted his confidence. "After a year or two of driving like this, I'm not afraid of any rider who has more driving experience than me. The road of go-karting in China is quite smooth, and after going abroad, there are ups and downs and many difficulties. ”
In 2010, Zhou won eight go-kart championships with a record of eight wins and eight wins, a record that has not been broken to this day. "I can continue to enjoy the joy of being a champion at home and being the best driver in China, but my goal is F1 and I know I have to go to Europe. I chose the UK, which is the birthplace of F1. He said.
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In the first half of the UK, Zhou had to have good luck to finish tenth, "which was quite a blow for a child," he recalls, "but just trained hard, and the next year began to compete for the top three of the year." ”
Life in Sheffield changed Zhou Guanyu. This city with the highest green coverage in the UK has a calm and peaceful folk style and a long tradition of sports. Zhou Guanyu felt that he was becoming more and more focused, immersed in stable training and non-stop competition. "That kind of peaceful environment without hurry made me more engaged in cultivation racing. And all the British cities love racing, and the teachers and classmates at school are very supportive of me to race. ”
"If you were to answer the question you asked in Sheffield now, would you be a driver like Hamilton in five or ten years? How would you answer? ”
The same answer, I hope I can be. The answer is certainly a little more realistic now than it was then. I didn't think I Chinese to be an F1 driver, so I really wanted to be able to do that. I'm an F1 driver now, and to get to this stage, I'm good enough to improve my results in the paddock and I don't think it's as difficult to achieve my dreams as I used to. He said.
When we asked him if his doubts had ever wavered in his fifteen years of racing, he denied it crisply. "I don't think you can go very far if you don't believe in yourself. My goal is not to be the best driver in China, I want to be the best driver in the world. Zhou Guanyu replied.
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ELLEMEN：
After the accident at Silverstone Station, you mentioned in an interview with foreign media that an important ability to face an accident is to forget and restart, which is why you can quickly return to the arena. How did you build this bold character at such a young age?
Zhou Guanyu:
Maybe the racing career has experienced a lot, a lot of things are not under their control, many times there will be a strong blow, not only the results, but also many aspects. But when you get up again and again, rush forward again and again, and summon up the courage to keep going, these experiences will shape the way you handle things.
I knew at the time that the accident was serious and that I had suffered somewhat, but the important thing was how to recover myself from this predicament. The easiest way for me is not to look back at the accident, because it is much more tragic from the outside than from the inside. I was hit and then quickly evacuated, and it all happened very quickly, in an instant. But I want to avoid seeing the whole detail from the outside and then quickly get back to the state. Although I inevitably gave a lot of interviews, it was a momentary expression and did not add more information to myself. Silverstone is followed by three back-to-back races, I don't have that much time to think about that, I'm going to adjust to the next game as soon as possible.
ELLEMEN：
In F1, your physical fitness is significantly better, such as neck strength. In terms of physical fitness, what are the key points that F1 drivers must break through?
Zhou Guanyu:
The F1 has a top speed of more than 360 kilometers per hour, it is an open body, unlike a car that has a hood, so the driver's cervical spine is directly in contact with all centrifugal force, and all the resistance will hit directly to the neck. For the driver, both cornering and braking can have a pressure of 3 to 5 G, which is basically three to five times the weight of the driver, because the acceleration is fast, and the cervical spine needs to be constantly stretched back and forth. We raced for two hours and ran more than seventy laps on a track of almost 7 kilometers. These have high requirements for all aspects of physical fitness, such as two kilograms of dehydration in a game, which is very physically exhausting.
The first thing we have to do is cardio training, and racing is very demanding on the heart and lungs. The other is the training of the brain's ability to respond. Whether in qualifying or official racing, you have a lot to control, you need to pay attention to every flag on the track, every light cues, and in various situations, the timely adjustment of twenty or thirty different knobs on the steering wheel, which requires high psychological and reaction speed.
To put it simply, for a person who has not trained, passing a corner in a car is likely to go into direct shock. Because the impact force is too great when cornering, the cervical spine will not be able to stand it. After all, there is no kind of exercise usually, and you will feel a tenfold typhoon hitting your neck, but this is how we feel when we turn corners.
ELLEMEN：
In addition to your physical fitness, your confidence in winning has also increased significantly in the last year. Specifically, how do you feel the 22 games of last season shaped you? How do you understand what F1 teaches you about "how to be myself, how to believe in myself and how to shine on track"?
Zhou Guanyu:
In fact, at the beginning, I didn't know what I would be like in my first year in F1, how smooth I would go, and how many times I would make mistakes because of my mistakes. Because compared with the past, F1 has increased a lot of pressure in all aspects, and a small mistake will be seen by the outside world with a magnifying glass, after all, this is the top race.
In F1, if something goes wrong in the rookie season, there will be a lot of noise from the outside world, and then the driver will definitely be affected by the outside world. But when the driver himself does not make a mistake, he can better find some room for improvement and slowly become a good driver like his teammate (Bottas).
I started out in a more conservative state, knowing that I had to slowly find the form to close the gap with my teammates, and I wanted to use a cautious form to find the right space in the first half of the season, so that I could better develop all aspects of myself. There are no mistakes, and next time I will be able to try more courageously. A mistake or a crash is still quite a big blow to our drivers - you won't go through the same corner with 100% of your strength on the next lap, you will take it a little bit.
That's probably why I was able to get into racing so quickly, find myself, break through in an environment that I grew familiar with, and close the gap with my teammates. I didn't expect that the gap at the beginning of the first half of the season could be quickly closed through the experience of a few games. So at the beginning of the second half of the season, you can be more courageous to attack and defend and fight cars with opponents.
ELLEMEN：
So be myself and believe in myself describe that you have more faith in your abilities, right?
Zhou Guanyu:
Right. The most important thing is to be yourself, whether on or off the field, I just want to be myself and let everyone see the most true self. Many people questioned or underestimated your voice, in fact, they did not understand you, and after a few games, many people even sent me private messages to apologize. I think that's enough, I've done it, the first year to respond to doubts with such performance, to get everyone's recognition and affirmation of my strength, to see my strength in the paddock, I already feel satisfied.
Photo by Nan Jiang (Astudio)
Styling Sherry
Interview, written by Veroxi
Fashion Editor ELVA
Visual Creativity Chang Zhijie, Wang Rujie (ASTUDIO)
Makeup Chen Cheng
Fine art Yanqiaoer
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