The first man in F1 in China: the narrow track leading to the tip of the pyramid
China News Weekly reporter/Ni Wei
Published in the 1024th issue of China News Weekly on December 13, 2021
The 25-year-old Ma Qinghua drove the F112 to the British Silverstone circuit, although it was only a test drive.
That day was July 12, 2012, a 13-year-old Chinese boy sat on the sidelines to watch the test drive.
That year, Ma Qinghua signed a contract with the Spanish F1 team HRT, and is expected to represent the team in F1 and become the "first person in F1 in China."
No one thought that the HRT team suddenly broke up after a few months due to financial problems.
It will be another 9 years until the next person takes over the title.
And this person is the boy named Zhou Guanyu who sat on the sidelines and watched the test car back then.
On November 16 this year, the F1 team Alfa Romeo Racing announced that Zhou Guanyu will be one of the team's two drivers to participate in the F1 race in the 2022 season.
As soon as the news came out, it caused widespread concern in China.
It has been a long time since F1 has caused such a boom in China.
Since the start of Shanghai’s “on the track” in 2004 and Ma Qinghua stepped into F1 in 2012, the relationship between F1 and China has gradually drifted away.
Although before the epidemic, F1 Shanghai races have never been absent every year, but the Chinese drivers seem to have distanced themselves from the F1 track.
Until the appearance of Zhou Guanyu.
"You have to pay much more than it seems on the surface, and recklessly, dedicate everything to the car." On December 1, on the eve of the penultimate F2 race this year, Zhou Guanyu was interviewed by China News Weekly. Said, "I am proud to be the first official F1 driver in China."
As the world's highest level racing competition, F1 (World Formula One Championship) is a game between 10 teams and 20 drivers.
F1, together with the Olympic Games and the World Cup, is the three major events in the world, but it maintains such a small scale, and its commercial value is in the billions every year.
What does a Chinese driver need to enter F1?
You need to have a talent for manipulating machinery, long-term practice from before the age of 10, and huge financial support.
In addition to having these, it takes a bit of luck to step on the rhythm every step of the way.
"China's most famous racer" author Han Han compares the significance of Zhou Guanyu's entry into F1 with Yao Ming's for basketball and Liu Xiang's for track and field.
However, from the perspective of the nature of sports, racing is quite different. Compared with basketball, track and field, which rely on physical fitness, racing requires a more comprehensive ability, which depends on the close cooperation of technology and people.
Some abilities can be achieved through practice, while others cannot be controlled by the driver, such as the market behind him.
"The last step seems very close, but it's actually very far away"
On May 21 this year, in the Morocco Grand Prix, Zhou Guanyu won the championship in the first round of the sprint.
In July, he won the championship in the British Grand Prix again.
At this time, his total points this year remained at the top of the list.
At that time, he was in the midst of anticipation and anxiety.
He is eager to enter F1 next year, but only two teams have vacancies and there are at least ten competitive drivers.
Zhou Guanyu is a youth training camp driver of F1 team Alpine, as a reserve talent training.
But Alpine's two drivers Ocon and Alonso, the contract with the team will not end in a short time, he can only go to other teams to find opportunities.
At this moment, the Alfa Romeo team expressed interest in Zhou Guanyu.
But whether he can sign this year depends largely on his annual results in F2.
The team members are all decompressing him, let him not think too much, try his best to run the next race.
"No matter from the outside world or the pressure in my heart, I have never experienced it in the past few years." Now, Zhou Guanyu recalled the nervous mood a few months ago, and his tone has been completely relaxed. chain."
The International Formula Racing Championship is a pyramid system, with F4, F3, F2, and F1 being selected one after another.
In 2019, Zhou Guanyu competed in F2 for the first time. That year he was on the podium five times and finally ranked seventh in the year.
However, he has won special attention and won the title of "Rookie of the Year". Among the opponents he defeated was Mick Schumacher, the son of "Car King" Schumacher.
These two young drivers, whose birthdays are only two months away, are often compared together.
Relying on the results of the 2020 F2 annual championship, Mick Schumacher is the first to "progress" for a year and has embarked on the F1 journey this year.
At the beginning of 2020, Zhou Guanyu set the top three of the year as a goal and confidently believed that he had the potential to compete for the championship. However, a series of mechanical failures delayed his rhythm.
In the first game, he was in a dominant position and missed the podium due to a sudden mechanical failure.
In the rest of the season, he encountered mechanical problems many times and was innocently involved in game accidents.
Until the second half of the season, he finally ran out of his best form.
In September, he won his first F2 championship in Sochi, Russia.
At the end of the season, he ranked sixth in the year with one championship and five podium finishes.
This is a year of frequent changes and bad luck.
At the end of that year, he regretfully concluded, "I was depressed by not being able to win the top three of the year." When recalling this experience to China News Weekly, he said, "Even if (that will) the outside world said that I was the closest to F1. Chinese, but I knew it until a year ago that the last step seemed very close, but it was actually very far away."
However, he was not completely satisfied with the results. He has already created the history of Chinese drivers. Before that weekend in Sochi, no driver in China had ever reached the top in an F2 race.
2021 is a year of high growth.
In the March F2 opener in Bahrain, Zhou Guanyu won the championship and won the championship for the first time in the race.
Last year, the Sochi station was cancelled due to an accident, and he won the championship with his victory in the sprint.
According to the F2 format, each race consists of two rounds of sprint and the main race. The champion of each round of sprint accumulates 15 points, and the champion of the race accumulates 25 points, plus the pole position points and the extra points of the fastest lap driver. Total points for substations.
After that, he won two championships in Morocco and England.
Before December, Zhou Guanyu had won three championships and ranked second in total points.
While accumulating qualifications in the F2 competition, Zhou Guanyu's F1 journey has also entered the preparatory period.
He became the development driver of the F1 team Alpine in 2019.
In the first free practice session of F1 in Austria in September this year, he staged his F1 debut and completed the one-hour practice session.
This debut has another special meaning for him: he is driving the car of the legendary Alonso.
Alonso is the idol Zhou Guanyu has followed since childhood, and the driver who has helped him the most in the past two or three years.
Knowing that Zhou Guanyu will participate in the practice game, Alonso sent him a message very early, saying that if he encounters any problems, he will come to help.
"Then that weekend, exactly like what he said, I asked him a lot of questions, and he was very patient to help me answer. We walked the track together, and he told me his experience." Zhou Guanyu sighed, at this stage, except for the engineer , Very few drivers will take the initiative to help you.
"As a two-time world champion, he didn't have too many reservations to teach you. He was really admirable to help you. In the end, I didn't let him down."
At this point, he has obtained all the conditions needed to enter F1.
After going through karting, F4, F3 and F2, Zhou Guanyu finally promoted to F1.
"At a critical point in time, he needs to get the corresponding results. He seized the opportunity. This is the key to his becoming a F1 driver." Ma Qinghua said that becoming a F1 driver not only depends on a certain single skill, but also requires excellent comprehensive ability and balance. .
He has experienced the cruelty of this sport, and feels that becoming a F1 driver requires "the right time, the right place and the right people."
In the Lianmai interview on the night of the team’s official announcement, FIA Vice Chairman Wan Heping said that becoming an F1 driver tests the "integrity" of a human body, intelligence, and behavior. "Although there is no perfect People, but to become an F1 driver, you really need to be more comprehensive and complete."
"You must always have this idea,
It feels like racing is part of life"
Zhou Guanyu's earliest contact with F1 can be traced back to a photo circulating on the Internet.
The 2005 F1 Chinese Grand Prix kicked off. Zhou Guanyu, who was only 6 years old, wore a peaked cap with a chubby little hand holding a team flag higher than him, and walked into the stadium to watch the race.
That was the second year that Shanghai "Shangzhou Track" opened.
The previous year, the Shanghai International Circuit was completed, with a single lap of 5.45 kilometers "Shang"-shaped circuit, which became the 23rd track in F1 history, and the "first year of Chinese F1" arrived.
Pan Yongyong, deputy director of the marketing department of Shanghai Jiushi International Sports Center Co., Ltd. and former general manager of the World Rally Championship team, believes that Chinese F1 culture started at that time and has gone through four stages of iteration.
In the first phase from 2004 to 2006, people flocked to watch the excitement, which was the initial precipitation period for cultivating car fans and business models.
However, most of the drivers who are familiar with the audience are only "Car King" Schumacher, who means a lot of star chasing.
So before Schumacher retired in 2006, the fans on the field put up banners, "We only love Schumacher, without you, we will no longer watch F1."
In the second year, many people didn't watch it.
Beginning in 2007, F1 entered the second phase in China: recession after the hustle and bustle.
In that year, 8-year-old Zhou Guanyu got into a car for the first time in a karting club in Shanghai.
The owner of that club is Ma Qinghua's father.
20-year-old Ma Qinghua was competing in F3 in Europe. After returning to Shanghai, he met Zhou Guanyu for the first time in the club.
There were a few children who trained in the same batch as Zhou Guanyu, and Zhou Guanyu's characteristics soon became apparent.
Not only can he master technical movements very quickly, but he also has a calm personality and strong focus, which is rare among children at that age.
A reporter once observed that he was always silent on the sidelines between games.
When he grows up, he is more cheerful, and after the season is over, he will invite friends to play football.
Pan Yongyong, who participated in the game, said that his character is still restrained and shy, but he is quite aggressive on the court and likes to fight at the forward and midfielder positions.
The Shanghai teenager lived up to expectations and soon converted his extraordinary talent into a trophy.
In 2009, he won the National Karting Championship NCJ-A Group (8~12 years old) annual championship; in 2010, at the age of 11 years old, he won eight stations of the National Karting Championship NCJ-B Group (12-16 years old). All champions.
But the excitement did not last long.
He spent his summer vacation in the UK that summer, trained with the British team, and participated in several local races. The Chinese champion found with frustration that he could only be ranked around 15th.
At that time, he understood: to go abroad, to compete in a higher level environment.
In 2007, after the loss of a large number of fans, the remaining hardcore fans formed the backbone of F1 spectators later.
After 2010, it entered the third stage of rebounding in Chinese F1 culture.
With Schumacher's comeback, a new generation of young car fans was born, and the development of social media has also played an important role in exchanging race information and consolidating the fan community.
In 2011, Zhou Guanyu went to Sheffield, England to become a boarding student and a kart driver.
At this time, Ma Qinghua is welcoming a critical moment in his career in Europe.
In July of the following year, when he drove an F1 car for the first test at the British Silverstone circuit, Zhou Guanyu and his parents were there.
"At that time, F1 was still a far away goal for me," Zhou Guanyu told China News Weekly. "Of course, my goal of leaving my hometown to train abroad is to become an official F1 driver."
By about 2015, Zhou Guanyu's existence could not be ignored in the Chinese racing circle.
He became a youth driver of the Ferrari Driver Academy that year, and then participated in F4 and F3 races in Europe and won some championships.
After Ma Qinghua, there was a "empty window period" for young drivers in China. There were few drivers on the Formula One racing field, so Zhou Guanyu naturally attracted attention.
"The path he took is very standardized and systematic. The only goal is to enter F1." Pan Yongyong said, "When your goal is not clear, it is often difficult to go that far. This is obvious in motorsports. I I have seen many drivers give up mentally in low-level formula races and feel that the world is far away from them."
Zhou Guanyu saw many people leave their hometown like him to participate in karting and formula competitions abroad, and also saw many people give up.
"Because I have experienced it and I know how they feel. You have to always have this idea and feel like the car is part of your life."
The personal requirements of racing are different from many common sports.
Ma Qinghua said that for track and field and other sports, people with unusual physical conditions are likely to achieve good results; but in addition to physical fitness, the car also relies heavily on control technology.
Racing is to build human sports ability on a platform constructed by machinery and electronics.
"Racing cars are hard to come out." Ma Qinghua explained many times that in addition to physical endurance, coordination and other qualities, it is also necessary to understand vehicle tuning, software settings, and communication with the team.
Of course, one thing that cannot be ignored is financial support.
This is also an important reason why talented drivers are so rare.
"It is necessary to have hardship and perseverance to treat the entire teenage period as a'gambling' without asking for anything in return. In addition, it is necessary to have enough money in the family." Pan Yongyong said.
This desperate gamble has a very high threshold.
More than ten years ago, Chinese racing driver Cheng Congfu, who had been close to the F1 track, said that his family investment reached 100 million.
In Europe, Japan and other places, car companies and sponsors have largely assumed the investment of cultivating drivers for families.
F1 senior commentator Ye Fei told China News Weekly that in countries with a good foundation in motorsports, very young kart drivers have sponsor support, but China does not have companies that closely accompany the growth of drivers. This is the entire car. Determined by the degree of development of industry and racing culture.
Take Japan as an example. The F1 Grand Prix held in Japan for the first time in 1987 formed a synergy with the country’s soaring automobile industry and promoted the flourishing of racing culture. Animations such as "Four-wheel Drive Brothers" and "Highly Intelligent Formula Racing" not only affected Japan, but even Inadvertently become a racing enlightenment for many Chinese people.
So far, more than ten Japanese drivers have competed in F1, and Honda's engines have also been installed in F1 cars.
"The development of China's automobile industry and racing culture is far from enough. There is a very rare and special case of Zhou Guanyu."
"A new steering wheel is like another world"
Zhou Guanyu undoubtedly pinned F1 and Alfa Romeo team's expectations for the Chinese market.
In the F1 strategy, the United States and China are two huge markets to be developed.
In 2019, the 1000th race in the history of F1, which has received much attention, did not choose the old track with historical retrospective significance such as Silverstone in Britain and Monza in Italy. Instead, it finally landed in Shanghai, which means that F1 chose to set its sights on the future.
Pan Yongyong, deputy director of the marketing department of Shanghai Jiushi International Sports Center Co., Ltd. and former general manager of the World Rally Championship team, recalled that at that time, FOM (Formula One Management Company), the Chinese Grand Prix promoter Fang Jiushi event and relevant departments in Shanghai After six months of planning, the F1 car was driven on the Chinese municipal road for the first time, and the purpose was to promote it.
Zhou Guanyu also drove a racing car and performed on the streets of Xintiandi.
This is one of a series of changes that have occurred after the F1 operator changed hands.
In 2017, Liberty Media used US$8 billion to take over the F1 operating rights from the British and launched a drastic business model reform.
While cooperating with Netflix to shoot documentaries, organizing official e-sports events, and embracing social media, they compete for young car fans while accelerating the development of new markets outside of Europe.
The following year, CCTV re-lived F1 after a lapse of five years, and the exclusive broadcasting rights of the new media went to Tencent Sports. The number of TV viewers in China jumped to the second place in the world after Brazil.
In 2020, the number of viewers in the Chinese market will still maintain a high growth of 43%.
"F1 is a commercial activity under the guise of sports competition." Bernie Ecclestone, the father of F1 commercialization and founder of F1 Management Company (FOM), once said bluntly.
He also said another famous saying: "In the process of growing into the world's most commercially valuable event, F1 also needs a black, a Chinese and a woman." Now, this Chinese has been found.
Former FOM CEO Chez Carey did not hesitate to say that he attaches great importance to the Chinese market. He said he hopes to see another Yao Ming in the F1 world and realize the sensational effect and chain reaction of Yao Ming in the NBA.
When Zhou Guanyu entered F1, the rules of the game are undergoing some changes.
This year, F1 ushered in one of the most important reforms in history: the implementation of the "budget cap" for the first time, setting the upper limit of each team's budget related to car performance to 145 million U.S. dollars, in order to restrict the large and large fleet from designing and developing at any cost.
The goal of the reform is to be "closer, fairer, and more exciting", giving small teams more opportunities and making drivers, not cars, the key to the competition.
The Alfa Romeo team joined by Zhou Guanyu ranks ninth among the ten F1 teams this year, which is far from the leading team.
The polarization between the strong and the weak caused by the “gap between the rich and the poor” is an open law in the F1 world.
The three teams of Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, and Red Bull, which have led the total scores all year round, are dubbed as the "Mars Group" by car fans. Of the top five drivers in the annual standings in the past ten years, 80% are from the "Mars Group" team. In four years, he was taken over by the "Martian".
"It is obvious that it is difficult for the drivers of small and medium teams to get ahead. This is not a driver's problem, but a car's problem." Ye Fei said.
Ma Qinghua believes that the smaller the small and medium-sized teams fail to get results, the less sponsorship they have, and the less money they have to develop cars and sign drivers, which has become a vicious circle.
This is related to Ma Qinghua's regret.
In 2012, Spain's economy was in recession and Ma Qinghua's HRT team failed to seek an acquirer and declared bankruptcy.
The team also hopes to cooperate with Chinese manufacturers and car brands, but the recognition of F1 in the Chinese market is not as good as it is now. "If there was a high recognition in China at that time, I believe that finding some Chinese manufacturers to sponsor HRT, the team may continue to stick to it. ." Ma Qinghua said.
But then it was the downturn of F1 in China.
Pan Yongyong believes that now it has reached the fourth stage of Chinese F1 culture. The die-hard fans of the previous generation take their children to watch the game together, and the structure of the old, middle-aged and young Chinese fans has taken shape.
Reflected in consumption, in 2018, F1 China's box office began to walk out of the bottom of the "U" shape and showed an upward trend.
Ma Qinghua did not fall silent in regret.
After he left F1, he drove into the touring car race track. At the 2014 World Touring Car Championship Russia, he won the second round of the championship, achieving the first time a Chinese driver won the FIA World Championship.
Now, he is still fighting on the track.
"After I drove touring cars, Formula E, and rally racing, I felt that each field has its own charm. F1 is just one type of racing. I should adapt to different environments, different tracks, and different types of racing."
And now, before Zhou Guanyu is the exciting first F1 season, the number of sub-stations in the new season will reach an unprecedented 23 stations.
The first season of new drivers has always been difficult, and Zhou Guanyu's F1 start will certainly not be easy.
In this winter of preparations, he will formally enter the role of F1 driver, adapt to the new steering wheel, in order to open to a whole new world.
"Each car's steering wheel and buttons give you very different feedback," he said. "A new steering wheel is like another world."
China News Weekly, Issue 46, 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing