Ferrari junior Guanyu Zhou will graduate to FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2019 as he joins the newly-formed UNI-Virtuosi outfit.
The British team announced its intentions to join the F2 grid for the 2019 season as a replacement to Russian Time earlier in the week and has now confirmed its first driver with Ferrari protege Zhou joining the outfit.
The Chinese driver already tested for Russian Time in the post-2018 test in Abu Dhabi and will compete in Formula 1’s immediate ladder in 2019 with the team. “I’m extremely happy to be joining UNI-Virtuosi racing for next season,” he said.
“The Abu Dhabi test was very positive and I am ready to have a good strong year with such a professional team.” Zhou moves to F2 after spending three seasons in the FIA European F3 Championship where he finished 13th (2016) and eighth (2017 & 2018) respectively.
Team owner Andy Roche added: “We’re very happy to welcome Guanyu to our team and we are looking forward to working with him. He is a very talented driver and rapidly got to grips with the F2 car.
“The championship is extremely tough and we feel Guanyu has the talent to progress quickly and have a very strong competitive year with us.” Zhou becomes the sixth driver confirmed for the 2019 season and the first driver for the new team.
2019 F2 line-up so far:
ART Grand Prix – Nyck de Vries & Nikita Mazepin
Prema – Mick Schumacher & Sean Gelael
Carlin – Nobuharu Matsushita
UNI-Virtuosi – Guanyu Zhou