For the upcoming weekend the number of entrants have now gone down from 12 to 11 in the WRC2 class when the Rally de Portugal starts, the current class leader Andreas Mikkelsen driving for Toksport WRT in a Skoda Fabia Rally2 will be missing the rally as the Norwegian has tested positive for COVID-19.
On his YouTube vlog he posted a video where he confirmed that he has been tested positive where he explained this about the situation; “I feel quite well, I just have a sore throat, a headache and a fever but other than that I feel quite good,”
“But most of all very hurt mentally. It’s really hard to sit home now knowing that everyone else is in Portugal to do the rally, that’s what hurts the most and also to let the team [Toksport] down, putting them in a difficult situation helps as well.”
“So for this I’m really sorry but at the same time it’s hard to control these things. I have no idea where I got it, where I received it.”
“When I started having symptoms which was the night Thursday going into Friday, you could trace it back four or five days, that’s what they say to when you got infected and that’s when I was in Italy, Targa Florio and also as well traveling back from there so I suspect that I got it either in Italy or on my traveling on the return from Italy.”
Mikkelsen expects to be back to Rally Italia Sardegna again and continue the fight to defend his lead in the championship. For the Norwegian, however, there is a chance to expand the his schedule during the later autumn, a missed round with a medical certificate means that the competition is not included among the driver’s seven possible starts recieved from the team.
“Quite confident my body will tackle this quite well and I will recover quite quickly” as “I am living quite a healthy life and I have a good physical condition I want to wish my team Toksport the best of luck in the rally, I know you’ll kill it so go out there and do like normal and you’ll do amazing,” Mikkelsen added.
