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Lewis Hamilton has been wearing a mask in the paddock for the last two races to avoid contracting the novel coronavirus. The Briton revealed he prefers to be secure with the spike in cases worldwide and wants to avoid being sick.
The Briton was asked why he was wearing a mask in the 2022 F1 Austrian GP post-race press conference when the sport had relaxed its precautionary measures. Hamilton replied, saying:
“No, this is personal choice. I just noticed a lot of people around me are getting sick and definitely don’t want to get sick again. I’ve already experienced it twice. But just I notice a lot of people around me, a lot of my friends messaging me that they’ve got COVID and some of them are much worse than others. And obviously I didn’t have Bono with me this weekend.”
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The Briton revealed that he preferred to avoid suffering from COVID-19 for the second time as a lot of people around him had contracted the virus. Lewis Hamilton had earlier tested positive for the novel virus at the end of the 2020 season. Although the F1 paddock has a mask-less atmosphere to a large extent, he stated that he preferred to be healthy and it was his personal choice to wear a mask.
Asserting his reasons further for wearing a mask, the Mercedes driver said:
“No one’s wearing a mask so I’m definitely wearing my mask. I urge people to do what they want to do and it’s your health at the end of the day. But yeah, I want to go home healthy. I want to be able to get up and train and do the things I love doing. And I try, if I can, to keep the people that I love around me also safe when I can, when I’m around them. So yeah, that’s it.”
Lewis Hamilton’s engineer Peter Bonnington was absent from the 2022 F1 Austrian GP
The seven-time world champion’s race engineer Peter 'Bono' Bonnington was absent from the Austrian race weekend and was replaced by Marcus Dudley. Mercedes chief Toto Wolff revealed that Lewis Hamilton’s engineer was remotely assisting the team via internal communications but was not present at the race. The Austrian team boss, however, did not reveal the reasons behind Bonnington’s absence.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 ahead of the 2022 F1 Austrian GP, the Mercedes boss revealed:
“Bono is not here and that’s always bad. It’s always bad for us as a team because he’s an integral part. Since 10 years, he’s standing to the right of me and I keep watching him. But he’s at home, he’s connected to the intercom. We’re speaking with him all the time and Marcus [Dudley] and Tom [Batch] are going to do a great job.”
The last time Peter Bonnington was absent from the race was at the F1 Austin GP and F1 Mexico GP in 2019. Lewis Hamilton has worked with the British engineer since his first season with Mercedes in 2013. The collaborative work dynamic between the duo has been a recipe for success over the last few years, where the Briton won six titles with the Silver Arrows outfit.
