Any driver’s home race is an occasion. A driver’s home race on a stage the size of Formula 1 is significant. A driver’s first home race on that stage is a milestone. And a country’s first driver’s first home race is history, even if only for the driver and their fellow countrymen.
For both himself, and his country, Zhou Guanyu got to make history at the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix.
Judging from the action on track, the significance of the occasion wasn’t immediately evident. The Shanghai International Circuit had been vacant from the F1 calendar for four seasons until Sunday’s (April 21) race, having last appeared on the schedule in 2019 before the event was canceled after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, China is so back, and Zhoumania came with it. For the first time since 2004, the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix, the track drew a sellout crowd, no doubt driven by the hometown hero’s presence on the grid; be honest, it certainly wasn’t because the fans thought somebody other than Max Verstappen would win.
“Just a very emotional weekend,” Zhou said on the Post Race Show. “As much as I try to stay focused on my job, it’s difficult to… you know, seeing how the crowd is cheering. Just fantastic.”
When asked what it would have meant to his younger self when he finally got to take lights out in his home country, Zhou was frank.
“I would say he made it, you know,” he said. “He made it, there’s no other sentence to describe it. It’s been such a touch journey to have no [manufacturers] involved to help me make my way to Formula 1 … And yeah, first contract, first season, but then no home race, so three years to finally get back here. So, I’m looking forward to many more.”
Both Shanghai’s return to the calendar and China’s chance to see one of its drivers race on home soil were long overdue. Since Zhou came onto the F2 grid in 2019, it was largely understood that he was destined for F1. Sometimes described as a pay driver, the Shanghai native collected five wins across three full-time seasons in F2, scoring a third-place result in the drivers’ standings before moving up to F1 with Alfa Romeo for 2022.
At the time of Zhou’s signing to Alfa Romeo in late 2021, a deal to extend the Chinese Grand Prix through 2025 was already on the way, despite the event being all-but-surely canceled for 2022. I’ve rambled about the relationship between China and F1 plenty already,…
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