Mercedes has catalogued over a thousand abusive messages sent to Kimi Antonelli after Red Bull’s Helmut Marko accused him of letting Lando Norris by intentionally in the Qatar Grand Prix.
Antonelli made a mistake near the end of the Qatar race while holding off Norris and chasing Carlos Sainz for a podium position.
He lost control and ran off-track, allowing Norris past – which meant he gained two points against Red Bull driver and race winner Max Verstappen going into their F1 championship showdown in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
Verstappen was told over the radio by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase that Antonelli had seemed to let Norris by, but this was said having not seen the replay and the misunderstanding was clarified between Lambiase and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff after the race.
Marko went further, though, telling Sky Germany that it was “too obvious” that Antonelli had “waved past” Norris.
This was strongly refuted by Wolff but it still led to Antonelli receiving a huge volume of abusive messages on social media and the Mercedes team receiving hundreds directly on its channels too.
Antonelli chose to highlight the matter by changing his profile picture to being blacked out but Mercedes is also raising the issue with the FIA.
The Race understands that more than 1100 “severe or suspect comments” were flagged by Mercedes’ community management tools across Antonelli’s accounts – an 1100% increase compared to a normal Sunday post-race.
There were more than 330 of the same type of comments across Mercedes’ accounts.
These messages included death threats and homophobic slurs, along with general criticism and insults.
Mercedes will share its numbers and comments with the FIA, which has a United Against Online Abuse campaign, but had not reacted to the situation on Monday immediately after the fallout.
Team principal Toto Wolff described Marko’s comments as “brainless” and “total nonsense” on Sunday night.
Marko has issued an apology to German publication F1-Insider while a Red Bull team statement stopped short of apologising explicitly.
“Comments made before the end of and immediately after the Qatar GP suggesting that Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli had deliberately allowed Lando Norris to overtake him are clearly incorrect,” Red Bull said.
“Replay footage shows Antonelli momentarily losing control of his car, thus allowing Norris to pass him.
“We sincerely regret that this has led to Kimi receiving online abuse.”
Speaking after the race – when he was not asked about Marko’s comments – and asked to describe the moment, Antonelli said: “I need to check I went in a bit quicker than the lap before.
“Obviously, with dirty air, the car is more unpredictable because you have less downforce. And, you know, the tyres overheat more. But I went in a bit quicker and just lost the rear all of a sudden.
“I didn’t inspect it, and obviously, you know, such a high speed I went off track, and then the next corner, with picking up all the dirt, I had a massive moment again and went off track again. So just, yeah, just need to look into detail. But it was pretty annoying.”