Lucas di Grassi tries to help in the fight against coronavirus in Brazil

Former Formula E world champion Lucas di Grassi is doing his bit to try and fight the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, introducing a sanitising robot that uses ultraviolet rays to clean public transport.

Di Grassi, a former Formula One driver who finished top of the standings at the end of the 2016-17 Formula E seasons, helped to demonstrate the robot cleaner in a train carriage on Sao Paulo's subway network.

The automaton uses ultra violet lights that can reportedly kill the DNA of cells of bacteria and viruses.

The Sao Paulo state Technological Research Institute (IPT) collected material from before and after the subway car cleaning, which it will analyse to see whether the robot is an effective tool in the fight against Covid-19.