“Worst outbreak cluster we had was when a translator”- Ross Brawn spots COVID-19 carrier in F1 2020, with three of 20 drivers were infected.
F1 season despite the COVID-19 widespread managed to complete its calendar and managed to tour across 12 countries to organize 17 races while complying with several national COVID-19 guidelines.
“I think it’s a brilliant example of how F1 in times of crisis pulls together as a complete family,” Brawn told the F1 Podcast. “We spend most of our lives, or at least I did when I was competing, in trying to destroy each other.”
“And then we get faced with a situation like this, and F1 comes together and excels. I’m just really proud of what everyone was able to do this year because it seemed an almost impossible task. When I look at how things were when we started this adventure, I’m really proud.”
In between, there were several positive cases, out of which three happened to the drivers, Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll and Lewis Hamilton. Though F1 boss Ross Brawn boats that the overall ratio of covid cases to total F1 strength was low, at the same time feels the ratio of infected drivers among the total 20 drivers is concerning too.
“It was slightly over one in 1,000,” he said. “And it’s fascinating to look at those cases because we had three drivers, which is kind of disproportionate out of 20 drivers. That’s something you’ve got to think about.
Foreign staff responsible
Eventually, he sought the explanation to the total COVID cases among F1 staff and drivers, he pinpoints at the domestic staff at the circuits visited and prominently blames translators coming in their proximity.
“Of those 78 that were positive, quite a numbers were track workers or people associated with the country we were in. I think the worst outbreak cluster we had was when a translator caught us out in one of the countries because he was working with a group of people, translating for them.
“Then of course he came into contact with them, and we suddenly had a fierce little cluster, but we quickly got on to that. So very few outbreaks, amongst the teams.
“The numbers within the teams of mechanics and engineers were very low. An interesting exercise to study the data, and I know some of the most diligent people in F1 got caught out. I don’t know where it came from.”
