who won in Qatar<\/a>, over the radio: \u201cIt looked like [Antonelli] just pulled over and let Norris through.\u201d Red Bull\u2019s motor sport adviser, Helmut Marko, was also critical of the 19-year-old rookie, claiming he \u201cwaved\u201d Norris past.<\/p>\nAntonelli, who replaced Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, has since turned his profile picture on Instagram black following a torrent of online attacks. Mercedes have identified \u201cmore than 1,100 severe or suspect\u201d comments \u2013 \u201cseveral of which were death threats\u201d \u2013 across Antonelli\u2019s social media accounts. An additional 330 \u201csevere or suspect\u201d comments were also flagged via Mercedes\u2019 social media channels. Mercedes have shared the figures with the FIA\u2019s United Against Online Abuse campaign.<\/p>\n
Red Bull were moved to issue an apology on Monday. A statement from Red Bull Racing read: \u201cComments 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. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren are powered by Mercedes engines and, speaking on Sunday night, the Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: \u201cThis is total, utter nonsense that blows my mind. We are fighting for second in the constructors\u2019 championship, which is important for us. Kimi is fighting for a potential third in the race. I mean, how brainless can you be to even say something like this?<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it annoys me. Because I\u2019m annoyed with the race itself, how it went. I\u2019m annoyed with the mistake at the end. I\u2019m annoyed with other mistakes. And then hearing such nonsense blows my mind. I spoke to [Lambiase]. Obviously they were emotional in that moment. I said to him, \u2018[Antonelli] just went off. He had a bit of a moment in the previous corner and then less entry speed into the left-hander. It can happen\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo with GP everything is clear. We cleared the air. He said that he didn\u2019t see the situation. But why would we do this? Why would we even think about interfering in a driver championship? You really need to check yourself and whether you are seeing ghosts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mercedes teenage driver Kimi Antonelli has been subjected to death threats after Red Bull suggested he deliberately…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-318351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}