Sao Paulo’s sniffle season has hit the Ferrari Formula 1 team with an unexpected pitstop plot twist. Several of the Prancing Horse’s pit crew have reportedly traded their tyre guns for tissues, leaving a few vacancies in the scarlet garage. But not to worry, Ferrari’s reserve driver Robert Shwartzman has ditched the simulator for a real wrench, adding ‘mechanic’ to his resume in a pinch.
Canal Plus reports that Shwartzman, who’s more accustomed to racing the clock in the cockpit, has been spotted giving Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s cars some TLC. While it’s not every day you see a driver dive into the mechanical fray, Shwartzman’s been all hands on deck—or rather, on jack—helping out where he can.
With the usual suspects for wheel nut wizardry out of action, Ferrari might just be calling “next man up!” in the most literal sense. “Right now it’s unclear who will be doing the pitstops,” a source quipped to Canal Plus. “This is not a joke, it’s a fact. So, it’s possible that Robert will help the team with that because they are short-handed.”
It might be all-hands-on-deck, but in Ferrari’s case, it seems to be all-drivers-on-jacks! Whether Shwartzman will continue to juggle wheel guns and steering wheels come race day remains to be seen, but for now, he’s proving that when the going gets tough, the drivers get… fixing?
