George Russell was not current in media and engineering duties at the beginning of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, coping with sickness.
The Mercedes driver travelled to Baku on Wednesday, however was not thought of effectively sufficient to attend the beginning of the weekend actions in Padoc on Thursday. A staff spokesman mentioned: “George is feeling dangerous and sadly he is not on observe at present. He is up forward of tomorrow’s observe motion.”
Drivers should take part in obligatory media mandates on Thursdays of race weekends and sometimes have each engineering and advertising and marketing commitments earlier than the tracks operating on Fridays start. Russell’s absence comes at the beginning of the fly-away spherical within the final eight races outdoors of Europe.
Russell is presently fourth within the drivers championship, 36 factors forward of Max Verstappen and 31 factors forward of Charles Leclerc.
FP1 begins on Friday at 12:30pm native time in Azerbaijan, and Mercedes believes Russell is effectively suited to participate in the remainder of the race weekend. With out him, the spare driver Valtteri Bottas could be current in Baku and will intervene so long as he wanted to. Finn was a former race winner on the Baku Metropolis Circuit, successful the 2019 race.
