How Zhou is aiming to make the 'next step up' in 2023

It was a solid first season from Formula 1's first full-time Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu, scoring points on his debut followed by a couple of finishes inside the top 10.

Even though he endured his fair share of poor reliability which led to track time being lost and somewhat inconsistent results, Zhou says he managed to pinpoint the main areas that he needed to develop throughout his rookie season with the team.

"At the beginning of the year I was improving one-lap pace to get the confidence to be pushing on the limit and not making any mistakes in qualifying," Zhou told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"The way I was able to reach that throughout the season, the summer break was a switching point to improve my qualifying pace."

Zhou reached Q3 one two occasions in 2022, at the Canadian and British Grands Prix, the former of which he converted into a points finish in eighth.

His best qualifying position was ninth at Silverstone, though this was short-lived in the race when he was involved in a terrifying accident just metres into the start.

Zhou wants to be more consistent

Zhou says he wants to be more consistent in 2023, given that he's now raced on all the circuits on the calendar apart from Las Vegas.

He continued: "Hopefully I will be making a further step up and try to be more consistent on my side because there was a lot more new tracks for me to learn over the 22-race season.

"This season, most of the tracks I have already drove. So all this we can take into consideration and I feel like this year we can definitely make a further step up.

"But we are as a team very clear with the weaknesses and also the strong points."