Gutierrez on the mend after Montreal illness

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Haas F1 driver Esteban Gutierrez says that he's feeling much better after being hit by a mystery illness last weekend at the Canadian Grand Prix.

The Mexican revealed earlier this week that he had been suffering from cold, fever, headache and stomach pain throughout his time in Montreal, but that he was over the worst of it and believes that he is recovering in time for this weekend's Grand Prix of Europe in Baku.

"It's not been very nice the last couple of weeks," he admitted on Thursday.

"I hope I'm fine. I did all the bloodtests, everything came out all right, so I guess it was just a bad period for my body," he said. "Different continents, different temperatures - it's crazy. I think it's why my body is completely confused.

"I had a very strong fever when I arrived in Montreal, the whole weekend in Montreal was not nice," he explained with a rueful chuckle.

"I was having a lot of pain in my stomach [during the race]. Every braking zone. Every time I braked it was like 'Yeurgghh'. But anyway, I persisted 70 laps - 68 laps."

Asked whether he was back to 100 per cent fitness in time for this weekend's race, Gutierrez gave an honest answer as he explained the problems of getting over an illness at what is one of the busiest times of the Formula One season with back to back races on different sides of the world.

"The problem is that I have not been able to train for the last two weeks. Here it's a bit hot - more than usual - so I don't want to say that I'm a 100 per cent because I have to see tomorrow in the car how I feel.

"I feel much better, for sure, but obviously the recovery takes time."

Despite managing to finish ahead of his team mate Romain Grosjean at Canada while he was ill, Gutierrez admitted that not being at peak fitness had a definite knock-on effect in terms of race performance

"Of course it's not ideal. It's a reality of when you have something happening on your body and you're thinking about it. It's one more thing you put in your mind which doesn't help, but sometimes you have no option - the body is a natural thing

"I'm a human being so sometimes I get sick and that's it - you have to live with it and recover as quick as you can. And that's what I'm doing at the moment."

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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.