Lewis Hamilton has contracted the coronavirus twice. The seven-time Formula 1 World Champion revealed this at the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend. The starting point was a journalist’s question as to why the Mercedes driver is still wearing a mask even though he doesn’t have to.
“It’s a personal decision,” he says. “I’ve noticed that a lot of people around me are getting sick and I definitely don’t want to get sick again. I’ve experienced that twice already.”
What was known so far was his one illness, which he contracted at the end of the 2020 Formula 1 season, as a result of which he had to skip the Sachir Grand Prix at the time. At the Formula 1 race in Hungary in 2021, he also admitted that long-COVID symptoms bothered him. Last winter, outside of the racing season, he fell ill a second time.
Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington was also absent from Spielberg. Mercedes did not give any reasons for this, but Hamilton suggests that it could have something to do with Corona: “Many friends write to me that they have COVID, and some are worse than others. And of course Bono is also this weekend not with me,” said the Mercedes driver.
“Nobody wears a mask, so I wear a mask. I urge people to do what they want, but at the end of the day it’s their health,” he says. “I just want to come home healthy. I want to get up and be able to train and do the things I want to do.”
In the current Formula 1 season, two drivers have already been affected by the consequences of a corona disease. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) missed the first two races of the season and was replaced by Nico Hulkenberg. Daniel Ricciardo, who had to skip the Bahrain tests for McLaren, had already been hit, but was fit again in time for the season opener.