Nico Hulkenberg back in action
Quite a downer for Sebastian Vettel. The four-time world champion also misses the second race of the Formula 1 season: the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia due to a corona infection. Countryman Nico Hulkenberg is again filling in for Vettel at Aston Martin. The team expects Vettel to be present again at the third race.
Vettel tested positive for the coronavirus just before the start of the F1 weekend in Bahrain last week. Aston Martin therefore had to fly into reserve driver Hulkenberg at the last minute, who had to enter the car completely unprepared. Hulkenberg had not participated at all in the pre-season tests. He qualified on the Sakhir circuit in 17th place, but in the race he fell back to last place.
Yesterday Aston Martin expressed the hope that Vettel would test negative and fly from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, but this morning it turned out that this was not going to work. “Nico Hulkenberg will do the practice, qualifying and race together with Lance Stroll,” reports Aston Martin. Today there are two free practice sessions on the Jeddah circuit. Vettel hopes to finally be able to start his season in Australia on April 10.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl