“After Abu Dhabi I was threatened with death. I have broad shoulders, but a lot of the comments I received last week were over the top. It worries me how someone else might react if they were given this kind of abuse. The events of the last week have made me realize how important it is to work together to stop this and to support those who receive these messages. It is right to report this type of behavior and not remain silent“. With these words Nicholas Latifi denounced in December the verbal violence received after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix by poor people, who should have nothing to do with Formula 1.
In those difficult days, F1 insiders rallied around the Canadian, who with his accident triggered the chain of events that led Lewis Hamilton to lose the title. AND Hamilton was close to him, giving him support. The Williams driver admitted this during the presentation of the FW44 livery (later revealed completely in the Silverstone shakedown, here the photos).
“In the days following Abu Dhabi, I took social media off my phone. When I reopened the apps, I saw it all: Trolls are nothing new but death threats were over the top. Lewis texted me just a few days before I let off steam on social media. Obviously I won’t go into the details of what he wrote to me. I was also pleased with the messages of support from other members of the Mercedes team, as well as the support on social networks from various colleagues. This is not the only case of online abuse of sportsmen, it also happened in the summer after the final of the European football championships, when the English fans insulted the three players who missed their penalties against Italy. (Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka and Marcus Rashford, ed). This problem exists, unfortunately. Social media brings a lot of benefits, it gives people access to things they wouldn’t normally be able to see. But, at the same time, there are these downsides“.
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