The 2024 Formula 1 season has now finished and Max Verstappen and McLaren will be entering the winter break full of confidence for next year after a job well done.
The longest campaign in F1 history tested every driver, team member and all the personnel who had to endure switching between drastic time zones with just a few days to recover.
For some, there was plenty of success to celebrate, with McLaren ending their 26-year-long wait to lift the Constructors’ Championship.
Verstappen dealt with huge pressure to win his fourth successive title, but further down the grid, things weren’t quite as rosy.
At the back of the grid, Sauber had a year to forget, scoring just four points across 30 races.
Going into 2025, the Swiss team have decided to make drastic changes, replacing Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.
They’ve brought in Nico Hulkenberg from Haas and signed F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto from McLaren ahead of the team becoming known as Audi in 2026.
Guenther Steiner was talking on The Red Flags Podcast and discussed Zhou’s 2024 season.
He believes the 25-year-old only had one good race this year before dropping off the grid.
Guenther Steiner says Zhou Guanyu only had ‘one good race’ in 2024
Steiner was reviewing the 2024 season and talking about the nominees for the Who Did The Most With The Least Award.
Zhou was one of the nominees alongside Pierre Gasly, Nico Hulkenberg, the Williams mechanics and Max Verstappen.
Talking about the candidates, one of the hosts doesn’t believe Zhou should win it and in response, Steiner said: “No, he didn’t do anything.
READ MORE: All you need to know about Sauber from team principal to 2026 Audi future
“He had one good race, he did one good race.
“I must admit he did one very good race. You know, yes, we have to be fair to him, but the rest, I mean, he didn’t do a lot.”
Zhou’s best race came during the Qatar Grand Prix when after 22 Grand Prix and six Sprint Races, Sauber finally scored a point.
Bottas nearly joined him in the top 10 – finishing P11 – but he lost too much time after being spun by Liam Lawson during a chaotic race.
Jolyon Palmer thinks Bottas would have been annoyed in Qatar after outperforming Zhou for the majority of the season but finishing below him in the Drivers’ Championship.
Zhou Guanyu hoping to stay in Formula 1 after losing Sauber race seat
After three seasons, 68 races and 16 points, Zhou will be sitting on the sidelines in 2025.
Unusually, Zhou has two F1 fastest laps to his name which is very unexpected given the cars he’s been driving have been getting progressively slower throughout his career.
Zhou has been linked with Red Bull as a reserve driver for 2025 and could help Arvid Lindblad’s testing previous cars program.
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However, Red Bull may want to avoid bringing in any drivers from outside their junior team as they try to promote their own talent.
Zhou is in talks with several teams about becoming a reserve driver, but whether he’ll ever return to the grid is another matter.
The likes of Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Franco Colapinto are all likely to be ahead of Zhou in the pecking order should a team need a stand-in driver at any point next season.
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