F1 to investigate unusual number of positive Covid tests from drivers - Ross Brawn

Formula 1

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F1 to investigate unusual number of positive Covid tests from drivers - Brawn

Hamilton, Perez and Stroll were all confirmed cases

Sam Hall

Saturday 19 December 2020 12:58

Formula 1 managing director motorsports Ross Brawn has confirmed the sport is to investigate why a "disproportionate" number of drivers tested positive for Covid-19 across the year.

Throughout the season F1 personnel were subjected to a combined total of over 76,000 Covid tests, from which there were just 78 confirmed cases.

But with teams initially limited to 80 on-site personnel at each race, and with only 20 drivers in F1 in total, Brawn has expressed surprise three of the 78 positives were Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll.

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“It’s fascinating to look at these cases because we had three drivers, which is disproportionate out of 20," Brawn told the F1 Nation podcast.

"Three out of 20 drivers tested positive whereas, for the rest of the F1 population, one in a thousand tested positive. That’s something we need to think about."

Offering further insight into the figures, Brawn added "quite a number" of the remaining 75 results were returned by "people associated with the country that we were in".

He added: “I think the worst outbreak cluster we had was when a translator caught us out in one of the countries because he was working with a group of people translating for them.

"Of course, he came in contact with them and we suddenly had a little cluster. But we quickly got onto that.

“There were very few outbreaks, I have to say, amongst the teams. The numbers within the teams, the mechanics, the engineers etcetera were very low.

"[It will be an] interesting exercise to study the data and look at [who contracted the virus].

“I know some of the most diligent people in Formula 1 got caught out and don’t know where it came from."