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Sebastian Vettel will “need to dig a little bit deeper” to make up for lost time this season says his Aston Martin stand-in, Nico Hulkenberg.

The four-time former World Champion has missed the first two races of the season in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia after testing positive for Covid-19.

In Vettel’s absence, his fellow 34-year-old German – and junior by 47 days – Hulkenberg has deputised, finishing 17th and 12th respectively.

Although he described himself after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “the old rusty guy”, The Hulk’s results were more down to the car’s lack of competitiveness than his own driving.

Aston Martin remain one of two teams, the other being Williams, yet to have scored a point this year, with Lance Stroll not having fared appreciably better than Hulkenberg.

The team have confirmed Vettel will be back in the car for the next race, the Australian Grand Prix, and Hulkenberg thinks his compatriot has his work cut out with an AMR22 that needs plenty of improvement in order to achieve significantly better results.

“Obviously he’s lacking those two races so he will start a little bit on the back foot,” said Hulkenberg, quoted by Motorsport Week. “But I think, you know, he’s very skilled, very talented.

“I think he’s capable of catching up, but for sure he has a bit more