"If Zhou was in front, that point was for us" - Alfa Romeo faced tire trouble while pushing their rookie driver into the points at F1 Australian GP

Alfa Romeo F1's head of trackside engineering, Xevi Pujolar, believes Guanyu Zhou delivered a strong performance despite losing out on a points finish at the Australian GP.

The Spanish engineer believes the Chinese driver could have scored a P10 at the Australian race weekend if he had the pace.

Speaking to Racing News 365 in Melbourne, Pujolar said:

“We were trying to push and give him the gap, but he was struggling at that point with pace. We lost some time in the last few laps with traffic with Lance Stroll, but it was very close. I think if Zhou was in front, that point was for us.”

With virtual safety cars and traffic, the Alfa Romeo driver lost performance towards the end of the race as he got stuck in traffic.

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Alfa Romeo are impressed with Guanyu Zhou’s strong performance

Pujolar believes Zhou had a strong weekend despite not scoring any points. Performance-wise, he believes there were no problems or on-track incidents for the Chinese driver, and he managed to live up to the expectations Alfa Romeo had from him.

Impressed with Zhou’s performance in Australia, Pujolar said:

“I would say very good, another strong and solid weekend. You can see that many people had problems, incidents, crashing. For us, it was very important to start the weekend [well], build up session by session, and don't push too much, because as soon as you make a mistake, it will take a long time to recover.”

While there is a significant gap between Zhou and his experienced teammate Valtteri Bottas, they have managed to work together to push the team ahead.

Bottas has made a significant amount of contributions by bringing his experience and energy to the team. As a result, he has stepped into the role of team leader and mentor for Zhou.

Zhou scored his maiden point at the Bahrain GP and is currently 15th in the driver’s standings.