F1 chief responds to fears over Covid-19 vaccine queue to protect schedule

Formula One's new boss Stefano Domenicali says the sport will try to avoid jumping the queue for vaccines to protect its longest-ever season from the Covid-19 crisis.

Some countries have drawn criticism by vaccinating their athletes, or planning to do so, ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Football bosses are among those who have said health workers and society's most vulnerable must take precedence, a stance Domenicali agreed with.

And the Italian, who replaces Chase Carey as the sport's new supremo this season, is well aware of the issues facing F1 ahead of next month's 2021 curtain-raiser in Bahrain.

When asking about the Covid-19 vaccines, he said: "This is a very important point. The most vulnerable, that is priority one. We don't want to jump on the line of vaccination.

"We need to be prudent and see and respect what is the situation with the more vulnerable people and we don't want to be seen as the ones taking away for sure."

Domenicali's comments come after National League club Chesterfield insisted this week that they have not jumped the coronavirus vaccine queue by having players immunised against the virus.

Mirror Football learned that several members of manager James Rowe's first-team squad have been given vaccine injections by a nearby medical centre.

But after asking Chesterfield for clarification, the club claimed that some members of staff who had the injections were suffering from underlying health issues that made them vulnerable to the disease.

They also said that they were given vaccine shots that would have otherwise been wasted.

Formula One, meanwhile, is preparing for a record 23 race campaign – some of them in countries hard hit by the new coronavirus, such as Mexico and Brazil, as well as those in the sport's European heartland.

Six of Formula One's 20 drivers have tested positive so far, three of them, including Mercedes' seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, missing races in 2020 as a result.

Last season started months late, in July rather than March, because of the health crisis and teams operated in carefully controlled bubbles with frequent tests.

The new season is due to start in Bahrain on March 28.

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