Aston Martin says it will decide on Friday whether Sebastian Vettel will race or not in this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Vettel, who tested positive for Covid-19 last week and was replaced by Nico Hulkenberg for F1's season opening Bahrain Grand Prix, has yet to return a negative test and remains in isolation at his home in Switzerland.
Aston Martin is therefore giving itself another 24 hours to make a final call on Vettel's status.
UPDATE: Sebastian Vettel has not yet returned the required negative COVID test to fly to the #SaudiArabiaGP. Nico Hülkenberg will be in Jeddah to deputise for Seb if necessary. We will delay our final decision until Friday to provide Seb every opportunity to race.
— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) March 24, 2022
Super-sub Hulkenberg is present at Jeddah and ready to fill his countryman's seat for a second consecutive weekend if necessary.
At Sakhir, Hulkenberg outqualified Aston teammate Lance Stroll but the 34-year-old struggled on race day, which wasn't unexpected given his late call-up and his absence from F1 since his one-off with Team Silverstone at the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix.
"We can say he’s a semi-pro already in replacing others," said team boss Mick Krack, quoted by The Race. "But it was a very late call. With logistics and travel and all that matters.
"We had a seat fit at team base but then with all the technical options that you’re trying to develop, you put the reserve driver a bit on the side.
"So what happened is that on Friday morning, we had to recheck the seat, redo the whole thing.
"But Nico is super cool, he’s not making a fuss about it, he gets on with the job.
"And this was really good to have someone with this experience that knows about the limitations you have in such situations."
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