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• Lewis Hamilton tested positive for Covid-19.
• The driver will miss the Sakhir Grand Prix this weekend.
• The Mercedes team has yet to announce a replacement driver.
• For more motorsports stories, visit www.Wheels24.co.za
Lewis Hamilton has been ruled out of this weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix following a positive result on his Covid-19 test. The 2020 Formula 1 champion won last weekend’s Bahrain GP after starting on pole position and remained in the country for the Sakhir GP, held at the same location.
In the week leading up to a race, teams and drivers are tested for Covid-19. If the returned result is negative, people can enter the track facilities. Otherwise, they must be quarantined until their bodies are clear of any traces of the virus.
Hamilton is not the first driver to contract Covid-19 in 2020. Earlier this year, Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez also tested positive for the virus after a visit to his family’s home in Mexico. The driver had to miss two races and was replaced by Nico Hulkenberg for the British GP and the 70th anniversary GP.
Pérez’s teammate, Lance Stroll, also tested positive before the Eifel GP, and the team was back on the services of Hulkenberg.
Merc’s situation
The Mercedes-AMG team is in a race against time to announce a substitute driver for Hamilton. The team can look at its pool of reserve drivers, but none of them are familiar with an F1 car. George Russell could be selected from Williams, but it would leave this year’s slowest team with its own situation of finding a replacement driver for Russell. While Russell would seize the opportunity to drive Hamilton’s championship-winning car, the decision to call Russell will upset too much.
The Mercedes team can look to F1’s ‘super sub’ Nico Hulkenberg. The driver, who was sent off at the end of the 2019 season, performed admirably driving for the Racing Point team. In his last outing, replacing Ocon at the last minute, Hulkenberg qualified last but finished the race in eighth place. This impressed the entire F1 paddock and the driver showed that he still has what it takes to compete at the highest level.
If Hulkenberg gets the call to race for Mercedes, he will make his lifelong dream of racing for an F1 championship-winning team come true. Earlier this year, Ross Brawn said that if Hamilton didn’t sign with Mercedes in 2012, Hulkenberg would be the next driver the team would have turned to.
More on the story as it unfolds.
