The “stuff packed”, the “helmet polished”, and then to the airport: At Nico Hülkenberg, something like hectic routine returned on Thursday – for the fourth time the 34-year-old gives a short-term comeback in the formula 1. From Friday He replaces Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin, the ex-world champion falls out for the Grand Prix of Bahrain (Sunday, 4:00 pm CET) due to Corona infection.

So the phone of the spare pilot rang on Thursday morning. At 9:00 am, the team called, “so relatively early for my spontaneous short actions,” Hülkenberg said to the side.

2020, a year after his as a tribal pilot, he was already jumped three times when the team was still a racing point. Especially the commitment in October at the Nürburgring was a short matter at that time: At 11:00 am in the morning the TV expert had left the _rtl_studio in Cologne, in the afternoon he played in the Eifel the qualifying.

Since the Bahrain-Comeback has now almost decelerating: On Thursday it went from southern France via Amsterdam to Bahrain, arrival by shortly after midnight. On his trip, he “talked to engineers and also with SEB, which told me a bit about the new car – of course I wish him a good improvement!”

Articles and videos about the topic
* Lewis Hamilton reveals: “Will change my name”
* Top sport live on Dazn. Register now! Can be terminated at any time monthly.

The use is likely to become a special challenge, because it is the first race of a new era. Completely newly developed cars are used, and the Emmeriche Hülkenberg had no chance to test these bolides so far. At the six test days before the season, the master pilots Vettel and Lance Stroll were used. The representation therefore becomes “anything but simple,” said Hülkenberg, “but I will now try to make the best of it.”