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Zhou Guanyu is still awaiting a decision on a future Formula reserve role, with Ferrari currently favourite to secure the services of the Sauber driver.

Zhou is well known to Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, who was his team boss at the then Alfa Romeo outfit in 2022.

The Chinese driver has a had a difficult 2024 season with an uncompetitive car, and has often been behind team mate Valtteri Bottas on upgrade specs.

However his three seasons of recent race experience makes him an obvious candidates for any teams requiring a reserve driver for 2025, with the 24-race schedule ensuring that it’s not a one-man job.

“We are talking to several teams, and of course Ferrari remains one of the teams really interested in me,” he said of his future.

“And yeah, we need to see. Obviously, there’s a lot of things coming up in the next few weekends for us to make a decision, but it’s clear that we are going through all the options we have, and then to see where we are.

“But of course, from my side, obviously, I don’t want to be committed to the future just yet, because I need to making sure everything is set down and it’s clear, and I have a massive commitment to the next project. So hopefully something will be happening or decided soon.”

Regarding the timing he said: “I think it will be somewhere around the next few weeks, I’ll have a clear idea. But when would I announce, I don’t know.

“At the moment, I haven’t signed anything. You need to find the right time, so nothing has been fully [agreed] until the details are right. But we’re working on it, and we’ll see what’s the future.”

Zhou had one of his best weekends of the season in Las Vegas thanks to a successful upgrade package introduced for the last three races. From 13^th on the grid he had a solid race to 14^th at the flag.

“I think that’s the best we’ve be in a while, since the summer,” he said. “First of all, I’m just really happy obviously with the upgrades working, and the team gave me a car that I can finally fight with, and feeling of finding the confidence back, which is a main topic I’m extremely happy with.

“It’s been very positive this weekend in terms of that. Today’s race was clean, but not a lot happening ahead, so we can’t really make much more than what we were.”

He added: “We have a new package, and I think it’s been a while that both cars are having that. And also for me, this weekend it’s good to be finally trying that, not just having something new straight away for a sprint race weekend like we did in Sao Paulo.

“It’s good to at least test that, and finding this rhythm, this balance we needed before qualifying to make it work. So clearly, I think this direction for next year is in the right way, this new package. But a bit late than I hoped! But I’m just going to try to enjoy it as much as I can.”

Zhou admitted that the car’s poor form had not helped his efforts to secure a seat for 2025.

“It’s been one of bitter disappointment this season obviously,” he said. “And especially the second part, not having the upgrades we wanted to have, and always having the old package. So it forced me back a little bit while it was a very important timing for my future.

“But in another way, like I said, I’m very relieved and looking forward for the next two races and together with the next chapter. So I want to make sure I give the guys as much credit as I can for the remaining races, and to see where we are.”

Fernando Alonso was left frustrated in Las Vegas on Saturday evening after being edged out of the points by Sergio Perez in the closing laps.

Having started only 16^th the Alonso driver was running 10^th behind Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda when Perez demoted him.

The Spaniard has now endured a run of four race weekends without scoring for the first time since early in his 2022 season with Alpine.

“I think every point is gold for us at the moment, even if we are not fighting for many important things,” he said when I asked him about his frustration.

“I think it’s good to give something back to the mechanics and to everyone in the team, after all the struggles.

“But as I said yesterday, only two races left this year, but there is a lot of trust in the team, and a lot of new people and new ideas that will come in the future. So looking forward.”

Alonso was the only driver in the field to start on the soft tyres, and while he initially gained two places he quickly slipped back down the order, and was last by the time he pitted.

“We were different, but I don’t think that it made really a big difference,” he said. “We just stopped very early, which we could have done it also with the medium, if we started with those.

“So it was not a big benefit on lap one or the start. And then we committed to stop very, very early.

“But the pace was much better than the race. We were in the points until three laps to the end. So to finish so close to Red Bull, Haas, Tsunoda, it was a little bit of a surprise.

“Obviously the taste is not great now, because there is no reward for P 11, and I think we deserve it. We did a very good race to put the car in P11. So hopefully in Qatar, we have another chance.”

Regarding the balance the said: “It was just a little bit happier today, the car, than yesterday. It seems maybe with fuel or something, already the laps to the grid, the car felt a little bit better than yesterday.

“It was a difficult weekend to understand the balance, this super low grip level as well.”

“We have to review the weekend. There are some things that we learned for sure, on the car. I think today as I said the strategy was great. The pace was better. Pit stops were very, very fast. I think we did a decent race.

“So if we started a bit further up in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, the points are possible. So that’s the target. We have two possibilities in Qatar with a sprint, obviously one Saturday, one Sunday.

“So right now, looking forward for Qatar, because you want to jump in the car again and try.”

Leclerc and Ferrari had a fraught Las Vegas GP

Charles Leclerc admits that the early tyre graining he suffered in the Las Vegas GP was “my bad” after he pushed too hard while fighting George Russell.

From fourth on the grid Leclerc jumped past Pierre Gasly and his Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz to claim second place.

He then pushed leader Russell hard in the early laps, just failing to go around the outside of the Mercedes driver on the fourth lap.

However soon afterwards front graining became so severe that he let Sainz past, before also losing a place to Max Verstappen.

He eventually finished fourth after what was a difficult race for Ferrari to manage.

“I felt like I had everything under control,” said Leclerc of the early laps. “But then from one corner to the other, I lost three seconds per lap, which was absolutely crazy. So yeah, that took me by surprise, and we lost quite a lot there.

“But then on the hard we were strong. But obviously it wasn’t enough to do anything better than third and fourth.”

Leclerc admitted that the graining in the opening stint was made worse by his battle with Russell.

“I think so,” he said. “It didn’t affect him too much. It did affect me, though. Being in dirty air, you pay a lot the price of this.

“So that was difficult to manage for me, but I just went a bit too much, I just put too much stress on the tyres in the first stint. So it’s my bad.”

He added: “When I started to feel the medium going at lap 6, I was like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look great for the rest of the race.’

“But then with the hard everything felt a little bit more in line with what I expected, and then we were in a good place. I think if you had told me that we’ll finish fourth after the first stint, I probably would have taken it.”

Leclerc expects McLaren to have the upper hand in the title battle at the next race.

“It’s going to be until the very end,” he said. “I think they are going to be very strong in Qatar.

“So we’ve got to have a good weekend, and I will be very surprised if we recover points from them, but we’ve got to. So we’ll do our best, but I expect it to be tricky.”

Gasly had to retire early after a PU issue

Pierre Gasly says his retirement from the Las Vegas GP was “a slap in the face” for his Alpine Formula 1 team after he stunned the pitlane by qualifying third.

The Frenchman lost places to quicker cars in the early laps, but he was still set for a healthy haul of points.

However he felt a PU issue even before the team spotted it on the pitwall, and he had no choice but to stop the car with just 15 laps completed.

The retirement had special significance as Alpine’s double podium finish in Brazil had propelled the team from ninth to sixth place in the constructors’ championship.

With Gasly dropping out Nico Hulkenberg scored four points for Haas and put the US-owned team back ahead in sixth place, while RB also closed the gap to Alpine thanks to two points earned by Yuki Tsunoda.

“It’s a tough one to swallow, because obviously we had such a high yesterday,” said Gasly when asked by this writer about the costly retirement.

“Going into the race we were very optimistic that we’ll be able to fight for some good points. I think the first stint was good, and as we expected with Norris, Max and Lewis overtaking us – but we knew they were quite a few tenths faster than us.

“I think we were on for a good fight for best of the rest with Yuki. We were ahead of him, and he jumped us in the pits. But then I think we’d have taken the fight on track.

“So we know there were big points on the table. It was such a good weekend so far that it’s frustrating just to end up having to retire after only a few laps.”

The team is still investigating the cause of the PU issue.

“We need to review exactly,” said Gasly. “But for me, it was pretty clear when it happened. I just lost all the power, I could not achieve downshift.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail because I’m not too sure, but when we know how important these points are, especially in the championship, it’s going to cost us big time today.”

Gasly is hoping that that he won’t face any grid penalties: “I think I have quite a few PUs in my pool, so I think I should be fine. You never know.

“But obviously this season, I had quite a few problems, quite a lot of races which didn’t take part in. And it’s just a tough one to have another one, starting from P3.”

He conceded that his strong qualifying result did give the team some reward from the weekend.

“I think there are definitely a lot of positives,” he said. “It’s obviously a lot of disappointment right now. And there is obviously a lot of positive looking at yesterday, it was definitely a fantastic qualifying.

“There is some performance. We know we’ve got work to do in some areas, but I think we are in a position to take the battle, the new battle that we sort of gave ourselves after Brazil.

“And it just feels a bit tough now going from such a high in Brazil, such a high in quali yesterday, and it’s like a bit of slap in the face right now. But anyway, we have two more chances.

“It’s going to be a matter of executing strong weekends. Unfortunately, we don’t score points for qualifying, but for the races, and we didn’t get it right this weekend.

“So we’ve got to learn from it and make sure we get last two good weekends in Qatar and Abu Dhabi to finish on a high.”

Ferrari Formula 1 boss Fred Vasseur admits that the Italian team was in “a bit of chaos” as it tried to juggle the interests of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in Las Vegas.

Both drivers suffered badly with tyre graining and swapped places several times over the course of the race.

At one stage Sainz was asking to come in and change tyres, and when he did head for the pitlane he was told at the last second to stay out.

Sainz also had to let Leclerc past without also letting the closely following Hamilton by as well.

Vasseur acknowledged that graining had made life difficult for the team.

“It’s really depending of the pace that you want to have,” he said. “And I think Charles was behind Russell, and when he tried one lap to push and to overtake Russell, he blew up everything.

“It’s really on the edge always. And they have to trust their feeling also. And it’s not an easy one, but it is like it is.

“It’s true that at the end of the first stint in four or five laps we lost something like 10 seconds. And then you can’t pit also, because you are in the shadow of the mid-pack.

“And if you pit at this stage, you have to overtake everybody. You have to wait for the others, and it’s what happened with Carlos. You have to wait that the others are pitting to pit yourself. And it’s a tricky situation.”

At the chequered flag Sainz was in front of Leclerc, who expressed his anger about how the race had unfolded over team radio.

It was not the first time in 2024 that there has been some frustration in the camp over strategy choices, but Vasseur played it down.

“We’ll have to discuss this,” he said. “Because at this stage of the race we were discussing with Carlos for the pit stop, what I was explaining, that he was in the shadow of Lawson, Tsunoda, perhaps.

“And he wanted to pit, we wanted to keep him on track. We were discussing like this, and on the top, we had to swap. It was a bit of chaos. When they are into the car, they have their own vision of this. But don’t worry, we’ll discuss it later today.”

Regarding Leclerc’s anger he added: “I’m not worried at all. Again, it’s always the same story that they have to make comments, or they don’t have to make comments, but they are doing comments on the in-lap, and they don’t have always the full picture. We will discuss together, and it won’t be an issue.”

Vasseur admitted that it isn’t easy to manage the tyres in Las Vegas.

“I think the conditions in Vegas are more than extreme for tons of reasons, the level of grip, the track temperature. For sure, it’s not something that we’ll have until the end of the season. It will be different stories.

“And as it’s a completely new situation each time that you are coming to Vegas, and it’s a very fine tuning. It’s not easy to predict, and even on the race I think if you have a look, we struggled a lot on the first stint, but the last stint was okay, it’s not that you are miles away.

“So it was true for us, but true for other teams. It means that you are not completely out of the scope. It’s just a fine tuning.

“And perhaps the fact also that we did a long stint on the hard before the weekend, but when you long stint the medium, you did three push before, and the graining is already open, it means that it’s putting all the team in a tricky situation. But again, it’s not an excuse.”