Nico Hulkenberg - F1's super-sub - could be lurking in the wings of two teams this season thanks to an agreement between Mercedes and McLaren that will see the latter use the former's back-up drivers if required this season.
Last year, McLaren had a deal with Mercedes by which it could have called upon the Brackley squad's reserve drivers if one of its own drivers had become unavailable.
McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl says the same reserve driver agreement will be put in place for this season.
"We will do the same again as last year," said the German. "We will have an agreement with Toto [Wolff] and Mercedes to use their reserve drivers in case of an emergency and we are happy with that."
Mercedes' official back-ups are Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries who both race for the German manufacturer in Formula E, and who are both former McLaren drivers by the way - de Vries was a McLaren junior early on in his career.
However, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff recently alluded to ongoing discussions with Nico Hulkenberg about the German fulfilling a reserve role when Vandoorne and de Vries' commitments to Formula E preclude them from attending a Grand Prix weekend.
"I think Nico knows the current generation of Formula 1 cars and the tyres and it would be good to have him in the line-up as a solution maybe to be shared with other teams, as he is a known quantity and well-respected, so it would be good," Wolff explained.
With the coronavirus pandemic still lingering, and three cases hitting teams last year (Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll and Lewis Hamilton), it's obviously better to be safe than sorry.
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