Gutierrez reveals hospital visit to sort himself out
Esteban Gutierrez has revealed that he needed a hospital visit in Mexico last week to get to the bottom of the virus that has dogged him for the past month.
Esteban Gutierrez, Haas F1 Team
XPB Images
The Haas driver has confessed to feeling unwell over recent races, and that the situation become so bad that he needed a full medical examination from doctors to be able to make him better.
"After Baku I went back to Mexico and I was in the hospital for one day to make studies from my head to my feet," said Gutierrez, who delivered his best qualifying performance of the season with 11th place in Austria.
"I was a bit worried before, as I thought something was not right and it took three/four weeks. I had a virus and bacteria...and then obviously with a lot of travelling my body was not recovering quickly.
"I arrived in Baku, I was so tired all weekend. It wasn't ideal. When you are not feeling well, personally, you don't have the same motivation as you would have.
"But now it is clear, we have put it on the side and now I am back in business."
Travel schedule
Gutierrez believes his illness was not helped by the intense travel schedule of recent weeks, which included the tough Canada-Baku back-to-back.
"It wasn't just from the virus," he said. "It was also from the combination of the fact that we are travelling all the time. And it was also a bad period because we were kind of hot and cold in Monaco.
"Then I went to Mexico. Then Canada was cold. Then go fly to Baku, the other side of the world, and it was hot. It was not ideal.
"But now it has all gone."
Enjoyment
Despite his good performance at the Red Bull Ring, Gutierrez felt his performances recently had not been held back by his illness, but he said his enjoyment of driving in F1 did suffer.
"If you are feeling better you enjoy it more as you are more on top of things. In Canada I didn't go to track on Thursday. I was just going straight into the car to drive.
"I did the races, I could do the qualifying and performance wasn't bad – but it was not pleasant. And it is not nice when you have in the back of your mind that you are not feeling at 100% and you are trying to recover and you are not recovering.
"But now I look at it on the positive side and I am happy to have made my best qualifying so far this season. It would have been nice to have been in the top ten but 11th position is on the left side of the track, so not too bad."
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