Mexican driver Perez positive for Covid
MOTOR RACING
SILVERSTONE, England: Mexican Formula One driver Sergio Perez will miss Monday’s British Grand Prix after testing positive for Covid19, his Racing Point team said yesterday.
The Canadianowned outfit said the 30yearold, who is the first driver to test positive since the pandemichit season started this month, was “physically well and in good spirits”.
They said they planned to replace him for the race at Silverstone.
With Britain extending the virus isolation period to 10 days from seven on Thursday, Perez also looks set to miss the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix — race five — at the same circuit on the following weekend.
Racing Point share reserves with engine supplier Mercedes, who has Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne and Mexican Esteban Gutierrez in those roles.
Both are experienced former F1 race drivers but Gutierrez would be the driver on call, since Vandoorne is preparing for the final races of the stalled allelectric Formula E season, in Berlin.
Racing Point could, however, call up another driver of its choice and Germany’s Nico Hulkenberg — who raced for Renault last season — is one such possibility.
A decision will have to be made before practice starts today.
Perez, who is sixth in the championship, and a small group of team mates who had come into contact with him, had already gone into selfisolation after an initial test came back as inconclusive.
“The FIA and Formula One can now confirm that the result of his retest is positive,” Formula One and the governing body said in a joint statement.
“Perez has entered selfquarantine in accordance with the instructions of the relevant public health authorities, and will continue to follow the procedure mandated by those authorities.”
Mexico has been hard hit by the virus, with the fourth highest number of fatalities in the world, but a Racing Point spokesman said Perez had not been back to his country since he last raced in Hungary on July 19.
Formula One has started its delayed season without spectators and under carefully controlled conditions.
Teams are operating in bubbles and all employees and those with access to the paddock are tested every five days.
The sport had reported only two positive results, neither involving people who attended races, from more than 15,000 tests carried out from June 26 to July 23.
“The procedures set out by the FIA and Formula One have provided for swift containment of an incident that will have no wider impact on this weekend’s event,” the sport said.
Formula One chairman Chase Carey said before the start of the season that the sport would not cancel a race even if a driver tested positive.
“We encourage teams to have procedures in place so if an individual has to be put in quarantine, we have the ability to quarantine them at a hotel and to replace that individual,” he said then.
The original seasonopener in Melbourne in March was cancelled after a McLaren