Coronavirus, F1.
McLaren retires from Australian GP after case
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08 October 2020A member of the Mercedes F1 team, whose identity has not been revealed, tested positive at Covid-19 ahead of the Eifel Grand Prix, Germany, scheduled at the Nürburgring from Friday to Sunday.
The announcement was made by the Mercedes team itself.
He is not one of the two drivers, the British Lewis Hamilton and the Finnish Valtteri Bottas.
"This case has been handled and is being handled according to the protocols of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), in close cooperation with the latter," says Mercedes.
“I can't say what impact it will have on this weekend. There are a lot of excellent people on the team, it's not just based on one person,” Hamilton commented. “We'll try to honor him this weekend. part of each of us ".
Mercedes is not the first team to register a positive case.
A McLaren member contracted the disease before the inaugural GP in Australia in mid-March, causing it to be canceled.
Mexican driver Sergio Pérez (Racing Point) missed both races at Silverstone (Great Britain) in early August for the same reasons.
Several members of the circuit staff also tested positive.
The alarm was triggered following the strict sanitary protocol put in place for the F1 GP: detection before entering each circuit for the first time, then every five days.
Local staff and other people are separated in the most airtight bubbles possible to limit the risk of contagion and positive cases are immediately placed in isolation.
The Eifel Grand Prix is the eleventh of the 17 rounds this season which started in Austria in July.