French F1 reporter Fred Ferret has tipped Zhou Guanyu to make a return to Alpine in place of 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Esteban Ocon for 2025.

Alpine have at least one vacancy for 2025 after Ocon’s departure was announced on Monday ahead of the Ca🐠nadian Grand Prix.

Pierre Gasly is ex🐻pected to remain with the team, although the identity of his teammate is still unclear.

Alpine have a co꧋uple of internal options available t🤡o them in Jack Doohan (their reserve driver) and Mick Schumacher (who races for them in WEC).

Externally, 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Valtteri Bottas has been linked, as has his teammate, Zhou.

Zhou was part of the Renault fold before joining Sauber at 🎀t💞he start of 2022.

On the latest episode of the F1 Nation pod♎cast, Ferret﷽ explained why Zhou to Alpine “makes sense”.

“What about Zhou? Who will be out of a seat,” he said. “We know that Geelꦑy is very close to Renault. Gelly is a car manufacturer of China which is very close to Renault in France.

“They s༒igned a deal one year ago. It would make sense to have a Chinese driver, even if it’s a🐻 French team, who is related to a Chinese manufacturer.

“I think Zhou makes sense alongside Pierre.”

F1 Nation podcast host Tom Clarkson feels that Zhou “ticks a lot of boxes” and his prior 💎links to Alpine make him a realistic candidate.

“I think the team will want to retain Pierre,” Clarkson added. “Zhou actually t🍰icks a lot of boxes because he was part of the Alpine young driver programme and they want to prove, particularly after everything that happened with Oscar Piastri there’s actually a way through to the F1ꦡ team.

“He did an FP1 in Austria 2021🐻 was the first time he appeared at a race weekend. That was in an Alpine so he’s got all the links, he’s got the link to Geely as you say. I wonder if Zhou actually is in pole posᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚition to replace Esteban.

“Zhou and Gasly. I think it is not a bad line up.𒐪”