Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko has admitted that he wanted the team's Formula One drivers to deliberately contract coronavirus before the potential start of the new season.

The 76-year-old said his idea was to bring the team's senior drivers, Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon, together with the junior drivers in a training camp. "The idea was that we could organise a camp where we could mentally and physically fill this dead time," Marko told Austrian television channel ORF. "Then of course it would've been ideal for the infection to come. "They are all young, strong men in good health.