{"id":21592,"date":"2026-05-11T22:35:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/21592\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T22:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:35:20","slug":"former-ferrari-f1-star-set-to-make-surprise-return-after-barcelona-catalunya-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/21592\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Ferrari F1 star set to make surprise return after Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Ferrari<\/a> F1 star is set to get behind the wheel of an F1 car once again, following next month’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. <\/p>\n

\nZhou Guanyu spent last season as the reserve driver for Ferrari, on hand in case Lewis Hamilton<\/a> or Charles Leclerc<\/a> needed to sit out a race. <\/p>\n

\nThe former Ferrari junior driver was also helping the team develop their SF-25 car in the simulator throughout the year, but has been replaced in his role for 2026 by Antonio Giovinazzi.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Article continues under video<\/p>\n

\nZhou instead took up a role alongside his former team-mate Valtteri Bottas at Cadillac, acting as their reserve driver<\/a>. Zhou and Bottas previously raced at Sauber together, but were axed at the end of 2024 and replaced by Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto. <\/p>\n

\nNow, it’s been confirmed that Zhou will be a temporary replacement for Bottas and Sergio Perez<\/a> following an F1 race in June. <\/p>\n

\nF1 returns to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in June<\/a>, but the race is no longer called the Spanish Grand Prix, with the new Madrid track taking that moniker instead. The Barcelona race is now called the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, and a Pirelli tyre test is set to take place after the weekend. <\/p>\n

\nZhou will take to the track for the tyre test, driving Cadillac’s 2026 car for the first time having done some extensive work in the simulator on the MAC-26. <\/p>\n

\nTeam principal Graeme Lowdon told media at the recent Miami Grand Prix: “I know he’ll be excited to get behind the wheel and just sample the new car. <\/p>\n

\n“He’s spent a lot of time doing simulator work, and obviously he comes to all the grands prix. I said before, right at the start, obviously I’ve seen Zhou\u2019s entire Formula 1 career, I would have no qualms whatsoever of putting him in the car if we had a problem with one of the race drivers. Obviously we hope we don’t need to do that. <\/p>\n

\n“I think he\u2019ll relish it,” Lowdon continued. “It’s a good opportunity for us to see how he performs on that test, and I’m sure he’ll do very well.” <\/p>\n

\nF1 2026: Which driver contracts expire this year?<\/a> <\/p>\n

Lowdon knows Zhou well<\/p>\n

\nAs well as taking on his role as new outfit Cadillac’s team principal, Lowdon is also the manager of Chinese racer Zhou. <\/p>\n

\nThat’s a position he has held for some time, and was also previously the CEO of the Marussia F1 outfit up until the end of 2015. <\/p>\n

\nZhou started his F1 career off as a reserve driver for Alpine in 2021, but was a member of the Ferrari driver academy between 2014-2018. <\/p>\n

\nWhen a full-time seat at the Alpine team didn’t look like a real possibility, Zhou opted to join Alfa Romeo<\/a> for the 2022 season, and would stay as that team’s full-time driver for three full seasons (with the team later becoming Sauber). <\/p>\n

\nAcross his time in the sport, Zhou collected 16 world championship points, but never found himself up on the podium. <\/p>\n

\nREAD MORE: F1 World Champions: The full list from Farina to new king Lando Norris<\/a><\/p>\n

Related\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Ferrari F1 star is set to get behind the wheel of an F1 car once again,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,4357,11454,4358,273,11455],"class_list":{"0":"post-21592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-ferrari","11":"tag-latest-f1-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sam-cook"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}