Pascal Wehrlein has brushed off the criticism over his decision to sit out the first two races of 2017, saying people had no idea about the extent of his original injury.
Wehrlein is returning to Sauber duty in Bahrain this weekend after sitting out Australia and China due to a lack of fitness, stemming from a period of missed training time following a heavy crash at the Race of Champions in January. There was some confusion over the extent of Wehrlein's injuries, while some of his fellow drivers said they would have done anything possible to compete in a race.
Ahead of his first race of 2017 and first since switching to Sauber for this season, Wehrlein said people were wrong to comment on a situation they did not have all the facts about.
"If you don't know which injuries someone had I think you cannot, or you shouldn't criticise them," Wehrlein said. "It's quite simple.
"If the injury was nothing -- it wasn't something too serious because I'm fine now, but it was just some massive pain, nothing else -- do you think Sauber and Mercedes would accept me to not drive? So... some negative comments I heard. I don't mind too much.
"I mean, I don't care to others have to say they didn't know my situation and they were commenting on my situation so I think for me it was the right decision and it was taken with Monisha and Toto and what the other drivers think is their opinion."
Wehrlein confirmed the ROC shunt immobilised him for four weeks, explaining why he missed the opining test of 2017. He went to explain the extent of the injury and why rushing back in time for the season was not an option.
"I fractured three vertebrae, in the thoracic spine. I compressed quite a few, but three of them were fractured. Medical wise, everything is good, it's just the muscles around, they went away, if you can't do sports for a few weeks, but they are rebuilding quite quickly as well. I'm quite positive.
"I couldn't move for quite a long time, and of course I was restricted a lot in my training. I lost a lot of muscle, so that was the main focus, to rebuild those muscles."