Ole Christian Veiby was only a couple of hours away from getting to the start-line of Rally de Portugal when a positive COVID-19 test came back, which lead to the Norwegian together with his co-driver Jonas Andersson to drop out of the rally.
Now it turns out that the Norwegian will be suspended, for a period of six months from the FIA World Rally Championship according to a decision made by the FIA and the competition management, which means that the season with Hyundai Motorsport in WRC2 is over.
Veiby did not state that he had close contact with any COVID-19 infected person in the days before the rally and that he left Portugal after the test result, traveling to neighbouring Spain instead of isolating himself in the hotel room in Portugal without informing the competition management.
The FIA has decided to suspend Veiby from all WRC rounds for a period of six months, the suspension will end on 22 November. For his co-driver Andersson who accompanied Veiby to Spain despite strict orders for quarantine at the hotel in Portugal, a three month suspension now awaits and it ends on 22 August.
A suspension also affects Georg Linnamäe‘s Ukranian co-driver Volvodymyr Corsica, for him it is a positive result of a total of four tests in a row. The positive that was followed by the negative was not mentioned before the rally event start, something that has now come to light and causes a suspension of six months.
