Sauber 'never concealed extent of Wehrlein injuries'

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Pascal Wehrlein has defended the way that he and the Sauber F1 squad dealt with his recent back injury.

The German driver was sidelined for the first two races of the season. He sustained a compression fracture of a neck vertebra in a crash during the Race of Champions in January.

Wehrlein arrived in Australia for the season opener, only to pull out citing a lack of time to get race fit. His place in Melbourne and Shanghai was subsequently taken by Ferrari reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi.

Paddock speculation was rife that Sauber had done a backroom deal with Ferrari to give their junior driver some early Grand Prix experience. But this week Wehrlein shared photos on Twitter to prove just how his injuries had been.

That's history ✔️
Many thanks to those who worked so hard with me since my injury happened

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.