F1 2023's extremely tight midfield battle is trademarked by an ebb and flow of teams rushing out parts that can yield several positions, but while several teams have made significant gains, Alfa Romeo has been quietly slipping backwards in recent weeks.
Valtteri Bottas and Zhou qualified 14th and 17th respectively at the Austrian Grand Prix. And while Bottas' race was compromised by front wing damage, Zhou equally struggled for pace and finished a lap down in 12th, with only AlphaTauri and Haas suffering worse races.
But with Haas' Nico Hulkenberg picking up points in the sprint, Alfa has dropped to eighth in the standings, just two points ahead of Williams.
When asked by Autosport if he was concerned about the team not bringing updates quickly enough amid 2023's development war, Zhou admitted Alfa struggled to keep up with some rival teams.
"Yeah, it's always going to be the case," Zhou replied. "Compared to a lot of the bigger teams they obviously can bring multiple upgrades if one doesn't work and for us, we have to kind of stick to what we've got, before we planned the season.
"Of course, we're trying our hardest but it's not easy, and let's say it's been a few more difficult weekends for the team.
"Everyone is obviously bringing upgrades and we're talking about not even tenths or one hundredths, we're talking about thousandths.
"I missed Q2 two times over like 0.006s in total over two laps."
Source: Autosport