Alfa Romeo has confirmed the driver line-up for the 2024 season! Zhou will stay alongside Bottas, what about Pourchaire?

Despite all the speculation, the Alfa Romeo team has confirmed that it will not change its driver line-up for next season at least. Zhou Guanyu will therefore get a chance for one more year, while Theo Pourchaire will remain a reserve driver.

Chinese racer Zhou Guanyu has signed a new contract with Alfa Romeo that will guarantee him a race seat alongside Valtteri Bottas for the 2024 season. The latter has already signed a multi-year contract that expires at the end of next season.

It should be noted that the team will start undergoing a transformation at the start of next year, as it will become Audi from the 2026 season. In the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the stable will race under the original Sauber name, so stability in the form of a well-established driver line-up is certainly welcome.

For Chou, it means he will have the opportunity to race on home soil next year. The Chinese Grand Prix will return to the calendar.

The 24-year-old driver made his debut in an Alfa Romeo, Sauber and Audi respectively last season and already scored his first points in the opening Bahrain Grand Prix with a tenth place finish.

He closed the 2022 Drivers’ Championship season in eighteenth position, having scored six points overall. He has just four points so far this year, having scored in Australia and Spain.

I’m incredibly motivated, I’m grateful for their confidence

The team said that his maturity and methodical approach in his second year have won him even more supporters internally and the new contract is a natural progression. Moreover, Chou is still striving for continuous progression.

“Re-signing with the team is always a great feeling, especially when we know how things are going. I’ve been working extremely hard since day one and I’m incredibly motivated to keep going every day. I’m grateful for their trust,” Zhou told the team’ s official website.

“The decision to continue our journey with an unchanged driver line-up is a testament to the investment we have made in our project. Nothing in F1 changes overnight and we have made a conscious decision to focus on stability and continue building our team,” said team principal Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

Source: F1, Alfa Romeo Team Stake