Zhou: Lack of upgrades hiding my improved performances

Guanyu Zhou believes that his own performances have improved over the course of the season, but a lack of car performance has prevented better results.

A tenth-place finish for Zhou at the Italian Grand Prix gave Alfa Romeo their first top ten finish since the Canadian GP back in June.

The Chinese driver benefited from the numerous grid penalties applied after qualifying at Monza to line up ninth, but was powerless to prevent the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez from storming through the field.

He was denied a late-race challenge on Nyck de Vries by the Safety Car, but still managed to break Alfa Romeo's score-less run.

Lack of car performance 'a shame'

Following their double-points finish in Montreal, Alfa Romeo have fallen away from the challenge for P4 in the Constructors' Championship.

Having less than half the points of fourth place Alpine, Alfa Romeo are now battling to hold on to P6 in the standings and fend off the likes of Haas and AlphaTauri.

Speaking after the Italian GP, Zhou believed that his own points tally would be much higher had Alfa Romeo kept up with the development pace of the other midfield teams.

"I think in every weekend it's important to score points, but it [performance deficit] is more to do with what [pace] we have," Zhou told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"For example, in Zandvoort, it wasn't quick but I was just trying to do the best I could.

"It's a little bit of a shame just because I made a huge step during the season, but then the other teams made bigger steps with upgrades.

"So I can't show it now, but if I had maybe showed it earlier on in the season, we could have had even more points for the team, but now I'm just trying to give everything every weekend."