Zhou Guan Yu to start from pitlane in Melbourne due to front wing change

Zhou Guan Yu will start the Australian Grand Prix from the pitlane after Sauber had to replace his damaged front wing from qualifying.

Zhou encountered setbacks in qualifying, as in his first timed lap of Q1 he found himself caught in a pack of cars, negatively impacting his lap time. In his second attempt, he suffered a power unit drop in Turn 6, and then had no response when attempting to deploy energy down the straight after the final corner.

With less than a half-second gap, Zhou was on course to progress before the end of the first segment, having improved by half a second at Turn 10. However, as he exited the corner, the left-hand sidepod of his front wing detached, with its support structure compromised, causing him to lock up in the following bend. Ultimately, the Chinese rookie missed out on Q2 by a narrow margin, qualifying 19th among the runners.

“I didn’t make any mistakes in that lap – it was exactly the same as every other lap I did,” Zhou explained. “When I got to the last sector, I suddenly locked up and lost all the pressure. When I crossed the line, I saw the left (nose) was gone. I don’t know what happened because everything was normal.”

Sauber brought a new front wing design for both cars in Melbourne but didn’t have a spare. As a result, Zhou cannot use the same specification in the race, forcing the team to revert to the version used in the previous two events. This will necessitate a breach of parc fermé regulations, compelling Zhou to start from the pitlane.

Zhou said the new wing didn’t provide a significant performance boost but helped with the car’s balance.

“It’s not a performance gain, more like an improvement in consistent balance,” the young Chinese driver said. “It seemed alright throughout the weekend and could have helped in the midfield battle. For us, it’s not easy to put together a perfect lap this year, but honestly, we had the pace today; unfortunately, it happened at the worst possible moment.”