With his car stranded on the grass beside the pit exit at the second corner, marshals waved the red flag and the session was halted after less than 10 minutes.
It did not take long for the session to be resumed with the car in a convenient position to recover and the barrier not badly damaged, but Zhou's running was further limited by his error.
What happened to Zhou Guanyu?
Zhou's incident at the first corner appeared embarrassingly clumsy. On the radio, however, the Chinese driver appeared to indicate the car was to blame.
"I have no idea what's happening with the car," he complained. "The car is so strange man. It just locks up all the rears."
Later in the session, Zhou was back in the garage watching on. Having already had limited meaningful running all weekend thanks to his FP1 crash and wet weather, the 25-year-old will be poorly prepared for qualifying.
Whilst Zhou was left unable to set a representative time on dry tyres, the rest of the drivers' practice programmes were only disrupted for a matter of minutes before the green flag was waved again.
Both Zhou and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are still looking for their first points of 2024.