Ferrari thanked Guanyu Zhou for his cooperation.

      Ferrari has announced it is ending its collaboration with Guanyu Zhou, who served as a reserve driver for the Italian team, a role he shared with Antonio Giovinazzi. The Chinese driver worked at the Scuderia in that capacity last year, and before that spent three seasons at Sauber.

      The team's press office thanked Zhou for his cooperation via social media: "We are grateful to Guanyu for his dedication and contribution to the collective effort as a reserve driver. We wish him all the best in the future."

      At the same time, American outlets have already suggested that the Cadillac F1 team may soon announce that Zhou will become its reserve and test driver.

      The reason for this was a mysterious photo posted on the new team's social media pages: it shows an extreme close-up of a cat's eye, in which something is reflected. Some think the reflection resembles the number 24, which the Shanghai-born driver raced under in Formula 1.

      The photo also includes the team's logo and the date — January 5. The caption is also intriguing: "Reflection of the future."

      Zhou's fondness for members of the cat family is well known — his favourite pet is called Kukuruza — and fans in the comments immediately connected Guanyu's split with the Scuderia and the date mentioned by the American team. All the more so since Graham Loudon — now head of Cadillac F1 — has been managing his career in recent years, and the team's cars will be powered by Ferrari engines in 2026.

      The team already has a reserve driver — Colton Herta — however the American has no experience in Formula 1 at all, whereas Zhou has 68 Grands Prix, a year of work at Ferrari, and the Chinese car market is very important for Cadillac, so the commercial aspect is also quite obvious. That is, of course, if the speculation proves true and the 11th Formula 1 team does indeed announce a contract with Zhou in a couple of days.