Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou is worried his country's Formula 1 race will be scratched for the fourth consecutive year in 2023.

Shanghai is actually back on next year's calendar with an April date, having sat out 2020, 2021 and 2022 due to covid restrictions.

"First of all I'm very excited about the idea, if it happens," Zhou, who drives for Alfa Romeo, said.

"It's already a big step forward to see it included in next season's schedule. I hope we can get there."

However, China is continuing to pursue a controversial 'covid-zero' strategy, with restrictions on movement and events still highly limited.

"There is no doubt about it," Zhou said, "when I saw that it was scheduled for April I knew it was going to be very difficult. I was hoping to see it in the second half of the year.

"When I saw it was April, I knew it was going to be a race against time to make sure everything was ok, because with the covid restrictions in China, you always have to quarantine so that will complicate things a lot."