Guanyu Zhou hopes China was “proud” after feeling the pressure of a nation on his shoulders in Practice 1 at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Alpine junior became just the second Chinese driver to participate in an official weekend session after Ma Qinghua, who completed three sessions with the last coming in Shanghai in 2013.
And while Formula 1 hasn’t raced in Chinese for two years now due to Covid-19, Zhou admits his appearance will almost certainly have spiked interest back home.
“There is a huge amount of people watching this free practice,” he told the media in Spielberg. “Obviously, having a Chinese driver stepping into a practice session for the first time in seven years, people are watching and amazed.
“I will look back when I have the time to see how many viewers we got, I think it’s going to be more than a normal Grand Prix weekend, to be honest.
“You don’t know how much pressure I felt before getting the car out on track,” Zhou stated. “Right now I’m fully relaxed and feel comfortable in myself and hopefully they are proud of the job I did.”
Offering his own evaluation, Zhou was pretty satisfied with what he hopes will be just the first taste of an F1 weekend.
“It felt special to drive FP1 today,” he said. “I’m really happy with all my runs and I was able to get familiar with the tyres early on. I didn’t expect to be up to speed so quickly and the pace was definitely there on the mediums.
“I felt good this morning, and I was getting more confident on each lap. I just wanted to build it up steadily and grow into the session.
“It’s only the beginning of my career in F1,” he added. “That FP1 session gave me a lot more confidence.
“If I jump into the car next time I’m going to be feeling much more relaxed and prepared to be focused a bit more. Today definitely helped me a lot in general as a driver.“
Adding to the experience for Zhou was the fact he drove Fernando Alonso’s car, the man who inspired him to become a racing driver.
And asked about the Shanghainese performance, the two-time world champion was very complimentary.
“Yes, it was good to share the day with him and the preparation in the last week; he’s very professional, he’s hard-working on the simulator the last couple of weeks, and I think he did enjoy today,” Alonso said via Formula1.com.
“He executed FP1 perfectly in my opinion, slowly building the pace, and no stress with many things. It was not an easy FP1 with traffic, with the [practice] start at the end, so there are a couple of exercises that you need to execute – like the start, the formation lap, etcetera – that he did manage very well, so it was a good day for him for sure.
“It was a good opportunity when you have two weekends in a row on the same track to give the FP1 to the young drivers,” he added.
“So let’s see if later in the year there are more opportunities for Zhou.”