Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda slammed those suggesting “ridiculous” conspiracy theories online during the Dutch Grand Prix.
As the Red Bull driver faced a tight battle for victory against Mercedes, Tsunoda would stop twice on track – making a pit stop in between – with his eventual retirement causing a Virtual Safety Car that allowed Verstappen to pit and continue in the lead.
That immediately triggered claims about possible collusion between Red Bull and AlphaTauri, with the prior’s strategy chief Hannah Schmitz and the Faenza-based team receiving abuse online.
On Monday, AlphaTauri strongly condemned the “hateful behaviour” and on Thursday, Verstappen echoed his former team.
“It’s not correct and I’m happy they put that statement out,” he said, “that’s how it should be.
“But at the end of the day, these things shouldn’t even happen. First of all, to think about these kinds of things is already ridiculous. Why would you even think that is possible in this sport?
“That individuals get hated on, is beyond me, how you can do that.”
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The reigning world champion then called on the social media companies to do more to address such messages.
“The problem is when you leave everything open on social media, everyone can say whatever they want,” Verstappen continued.
“I think there needs to be a lot more addressing on hate and it seems like these companies, they put a bit of focus on it, but not enough.
“You can create other accounts and keep on going. If they block your IP address you can go somewhere else. People are smart enough to get around it.
“Definitely they need to come up with a solution for that. Of course, social media is growing and I think it’s a great tool to have, but some parts of it are quite negative.”
Regardless of the online reaction, Verstappen also made it clear it would not disrupt Red Bull operationally.
“We know what we’re doing, we love the sport, and we just look ahead,” he added. “We are very happy we won the race there and what people say on social media doesn’t really bother us.
“But it should not really happen in the first place. That’s what you try to address and why you stress on, that hopefully in a few years time these things are not possible to do.
“Besides that, we’re a strong team and we are very happy to be here and we just focus on our job.”
As for Tsunoda, he was typically blunt when asked if he could understand why some were questioning what happened.
“First I don’t want to know! I don’t care,” he said.
“I want to ask how your brain is created, what your brain looks like, scan the MRI and see what’s wrong. It’s funny how they create a story.
“Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri are completely different teams, we are in Italy, they are in the UK. We compete in a completely different field.”
On what happened at Zandvoort, Tsunoda added: “It’s just a super simple fact that there was an issue in the car and we’ve confirmed it was a differential issue. Of course, the situation made it a little bit confusing.
“But there’s not such a room to complain to the team, myself and also especially to Red Bull, such, to be honest, a crazy, crazy story.
“I was also running in a good opportunity to score points. So, there’s not any reason to help Max, you know?”