The 22-year-old Chinese is considered the favorite to become Valtteri Botta’s team-mate at Alfa in 2022. A decision should be made in the next few weeks.
Though Zhou’s recent endeavors have been led by the Alpine Academy, which entered the program in 2019 under what was then Renault’s guise, the French automaker won’t stand in his way if it finds a full-time race place with a rival squad.
Alpine managing director Marcin Budkowski said: “Rumors are circulating and I will not comment on rumors or driver contracts here.
“We evaluate options for our academy drivers, but the success of an academy is also measured by its performance.
“We run this academy because we want to generate Formula 1 drivers, Formula 1 drivers for Alpine.
“The academy as such is only successful if it produces Formula 1 drivers, so we cannot stand in the way of our drivers who are ready for F1 and accept this challenge.
“That would of course be negative for their careers and for them as individuals, and it would also have a negative impact on our academy.
“So these are the parameters we need to consider when evaluating our plans for the next year, if you will.”
Photo by: Alpine
Instead of worrying about potentially losing drivers, Budkowski says any other deal would be positive for Zhou to show how effective his academy is.
“It’s a big problem, isn’t it?” he said when asked about the complications of Zhou being released to race elsewhere.
“What we are basically saying is that our academy has successfully produced great talent and some of them are maturing in some way and being ready for F1 at the same time.
“So thanks to the academy that we have been running for several years, and to Mia Sharizman, our academy director, who prepared all these young people and successfully guided them through all of these different categories.”
With F1 rules set to change for 2022 to make it mandatory for teams to use rookie drivers in a number of Friday training sessions, Zhou would have been an obvious candidate for Alpine.
However, if he ends up at Alfa Romeo, it could open the door for fellow driver Oscar Piastri to take on an F1 Friday role in the F2 after his impressive rookie campaign.
Regarding Alpine’s young driver plans for 2022, Budkowski said the team couldn’t ignore what Piastri has done this year.
“Oscar was definitely extremely impressive,” he said. “He may be well on his way to winning his third championship in three years.
“He won F3, he won the Renault Eurocup in previous years, so what a streak. Even if he doesn’t win it [F2]It’s been a pretty tough three years for a young driver.
“I think very few have done that in the past, so does that impress us at Alpine? Of course it does. Will he win the championship? We’ll know soon.
“But it certainly has an impact on the plans we are making for the reserve driver’s seat for the next year and for the performance of the academy in general.”
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