Nico Hulkenberg, GP 2019 Singapore 2019
© RV Press
Toto Wolff confirmed on Friday that he is in talks with Nico Hulkenberg, to make the former German one of Mercedes’ reserve reserve drivers for this season. Hulkenberg stepped into three Grand Prix last year, always for Racing Point, replacing Sergio Perez in the British Grand Prix and 70 years ago, both ran at Silverstone, and just for his deserve it and the race at the Eifel Grand Prix, replacing Lance Stroll, as both drivers of the team contracted the COVID-19 virus throughout the season.
Mercedes also had to use a reserve driver, for the Sakhir Grand Prix, when Lewis Hamilton tested positive for the virus just two days after winning his seventh World Championship title, with George Russell drafted in from Williams, while Jake Aitken was called up to replace the young Brit as well.
Now, despite the fact that both Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries are listed as official asylum drivers, Mercedes is close to signing a contract with Hulkenberg, to become their asylum driver “on the site ”, as Toto Wolff explained:“ There is a situation where our two reserve drivers, Stoffel and Nyck, are racing in Formula E, and there are special races where there is an overlap. I think Nico has knowledge of the current generation of Formula One cars and tires and it would be great to have him in line as a solution. Could., Be shared with other teams, as it is famous for size and has a lot of respect, so it would be great, but it has not been done yet, because we did not put the pen to paper. ”
Aston Martin is one of the teams that will share Hulkenberg services with Mercedes, but Andreas Seidle confirmed that McLaren will also call on German services if necessary: “On our side we will do the same again to last year, there will be an agreement with Toto and Mercedes to use their asylum drivers in case of emergency and we are happy with that. ”It is worth noting that when Lando Norris turned an uncertain test at Silverstone, for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, Seidl named former Formula One driver Paul di Resta as his team ‘s reserve driver and it is just from McLaren subsequently entered into a contract with Mercedes that would have allowed the Wiking – based team to use one of the German team ‘s reserve driver if necessary.