Zhou Guanyu baffled by Nicholas Latifi

Zhou Guanyu was left baffled by outgoing Williams driver Nicholas Latifi at the Singapore Grand Prix, after the Canadian pushed the Chinese driver into the wall on the entry to Turn Five.



With no Chinese Grand Prix this season due to the Coronavirus pandemic, Zhou was treating the first race at the Marina Bay Circuit since 2019 as his home race for this season, with it being the closest Grand Prix to his home.



As a result of treating Singapore as his home event, the Alfa Romeo driver was joined by friends and family, who were all seen in the 23-year-old’s garage.



The race was unfortunately short-lived for the Chinese driver, after being caught up in a heavy collision by a seemingly unaware Latifi.







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The duo were battling for P18 when the collision occurred on Lap Seven, where Zhou’s front-right tyre broke and folded inwards, after Latifi cut across him.



The Williams driver bizarrely said he “didn’t see” the Alfa Romeo, even though, they were side-by-side just moments earlier.



Zhou waved his hand in frustration, before jumping onto his radio to say Latifi had “fully squished me into the wall”, before questioning what exactly the Canadian “was doing”.



Latifi did manage to get back to the pits, but immediately joined Zhou in retiring from the race.



The point-less driver revealed that he needed to “see the replay” to fully understand what happened after not seeing Zhou; however, he later admitted that the Chinese driver must have been “there”.



“I need to see the replay because when I exited for Turn 3 on the left-hand side of my mirror I didn’t see who was there,” the 27-year-old told F1.com.



“Obviously in the end, I pulled back to the racing line for the braking zone. I guess he was there but I haven’t seen the replay.



“I just didn’t see who was there because I was so wide he was in a point where the mirrors can’t detect. Then we had a puncture and suspension damage so had to retire the car.”



Zhou was absolutely lost by Latifi’s explanation of the incident, considering they were side-by-side from the exit of Turn Three all the way to Turn Five.



The rookie deemed the collision as “unnecessary” and believes Latifi “knew” that he would be on his outside.



“I was quite surprised actually because we were side-by-side going into Turn 4,” the 23-year-old said.



“The next thing I got, he just fully left-hand-downed me before the corner. I feel it’s unnecessary and he knew I was always going to be there because he missed the apex into Turn 3.”



As a result of the DNF, Zhou has retired from six races this season with his luck seemingly invisible this year.



The driver has rarely put a foot wrong all season and has commonly been caught up by other drivers’ mistakes or reliability gremlins.




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Zhou was asked if he’d talk to the Williams driver about the incident, something the Alfa Romeo driver doesn’t really see the point of, with Latifi’s “awareness” appearing to be the issue.



“There’s not much to talk about,” Zhou said.



“It’s more like how the awareness of each driver and when you’re racing here, I know the conditions are tricky, but you still have to always leave a space and expect someone’s there because he was defending all the time, and then why this time he suddenly fully closed the door which is pretty dangerous on my side.”
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