F1 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo Racing

China has never boasted a Grand Prix starter among its citizens – but Zhou Guanyu is the driver charged with changing that state of affairs, after receiving the call-up to make his F1 debut for Alfa Romeo in 2022. 

The Shanghai-born racer attended his home city’s inaugural Grand Prix in 2004 at the age of five, cheering on his hero Fernando Alonso. But having caught the racing bug, the Chinese driver then set himself the ambitious goal of becoming his country’s first-ever F1 racer – achieving a feat that Ma Qinghua, the only other Chinese driver to take part in a Formula 1 weekend, never managed. 

Showing boldness and dedication, Zhou put his plan into action by moving to England with his family aged just 12 to pursue his motorsport ambitions. A second-place finish in the 2015 Italian F4 championship proved Zhou was possessed of the right stuff – a fact already noted by Ferrari, who’d signed him to their driver academy a year earlier.