Zhou signed for Alfa Romeo in 2022 to partner Valtteri Bottas, scoring his first career point on debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Having started karting when he was eight years old in China, Zhou moved to Sheffield in 2012 for a more competitive racing environment,[1] where he attended Westbourne School.

[3][4] For his final year of karting, Zhou finished 2nd in the Rotax Max Senior Euro Challenge and participated in selected rounds of WSK Champions Cup and the KF2 European Championship.

He also made his first and only appearance in the Karting World Championship, driving for Ricky Flynn Motorsport alongside Lando Norris and Jehan Daruvala.

After winning all three races in Round 2 at Monza and consistently finishing on the podium, Zhou ended the season as vice-champion and best rookie.

[7] Season highlights included leading race 3 in Spa and holding back Lando Norris in the penultimate round.

Despite a strong qualifying pace in Spa and Silverstone, Zhou suffered 4 consecutive retirements with a series of teammate collisions and tyre punctures.

During the winter break before the start of the 2021 Formula 2 season, Zhou participated in the 2021 F3 Asian Championship driving for Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema.

[27][28][29] In a press release following the announcement, Zhou stated that he was "well prepared for the immense challenge of Formula 1" and that his entry into the series would be "a breakthrough for Chinese motorsport history".

[31] He qualified fifteenth on his debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix,[32] but recovered from a poor start in the race to finish tenth, scoring a point.

[34] At the next race, the British Grand Prix, he was involved in a high-speed collision with George Russell on the opening lap that caused Zhou's car to flip upside-down, skid across the track and gravel and bounce over the barriers into the catch fence.

He finished sixteenth at the rain-shortened Japanese Grand Prix, but a late pit stop for new tyres allowed him to claim the fastest lap for the first time in his career.

He was slow off the start line and was then involved in a first-corner collision for which he received a time penalty; he went on to finish the race sixteenth.

Zhou started fifteenth on the grid at the Dutch Grand Prix but a call to change to intermediate tyres after lap one promoted him as high as second place.

[43] Zhou qualified nineteenth at the Singapore Grand Prix and was required to start from the pit lane as his car was modified in parc fermé.

[44] Zhou qualified last on the grid at the Qatar Grand Prix, but benefitted from Carlos Sainz Jr.'s failure to start, a collision between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell and other drivers' struggles with the extreme heat to take ninth place in the main race, his third points finish of the season.

Autosport praised Zhou for "holding his own" against Bottas but identified qualifying as an area for improvement,[48] and RaceFans described his performance in 2023 as "professional if unspectacular".

[52] Zhou completed the race in his home city of Shanghai for the first time in April as the Chinese Grand Prix returned to the calendar for the 2024 season.

He crashed in the final practice session at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and the team were unable to repair his car in time to set a qualifying lap; he finished the race last of the running drivers in eighteenth place.

[54] He damaged his front wing in qualifying at the Australian Grand Prix and was forced to start the race from the pit lane due to a different specification replacement part being fitted; the team had not brought spares of the current design to Australia.

[57] Zhou finished 16th in the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix after a three-car collision between Nico Hülkenberg, Sergio Pérez and Kevin Magnussen.

He scored Sauber's first points of the 2024 season at the Qatar Grand Prix, qualifying twelfth and finishing eighth after two safety cars.

[58] Zhou left Sauber at the end of the season, with Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto joining for 2025, prior to their takeover by Audi.