Double podium for Ghiotto as rookie Zhou earns more points in Austria following tricky Red Bull Ring

Italian driver Luca Ghiotto scored second place for the second race in a row in Austria in what was another strong weekend for the UNI-Virtuosi Racing squad. Chinese driver Guan Yu Zhou continued his strong rookie season by adding to his points tally.

Ghiotto started seventh on the grid for Sunday’s race, with the order of the grid decided by reversing the top eight positions on the grid from Saturday’s race. He made a number of impressive overtaking moves and closed in on the race leader, before a late safety car shortened the race and the 24-year-old had to settle for second.

Rookie Zhou started third, but for the second race in a row was shoved off the track at Turn 3. After that his tyres degraded rapidly, starving his car of grip entering and exiting corners. Despite fighting this heavy degradation he held on to take a brilliant eighth place, one spot behind the driver who started at the front of the grid.

The team has a two-week break before it heads to its home races at the British Grand Prix, both Zhou and Ghiotto having competed at Silverstone before.

Luca Ghiotto

“Of course, you always hope to win, I wouldn’t be a racing driver if I didn’t! But I’m happy with the weekend overall. We just need to keep working and doing the best we can. I’m not happy with how I drove in qualifying so I need to work with the team on that to get back to the front. But still, really happy with that to score a double podium after a difficult couple of weekends before. It’s really, really nice.”

Guan Yu Zhou

“It was a frustrating race, already having big trouble with my rear tyres and I was already struggling after 10 laps. It was really hard after that. Lucky enough we still held on for a point. It’s been a pretty positive weekend apart from that race, with some positives to take into Silverstone next round.”