Jun.9 (GMM) Many new fans of top-level single seater racing do not understand “how motorsport works”.
That’s the view of a Formula 2 driver who finds himself at the centre of the latest episode of the FIA’s fight against online “hate” – Richard Verschoor.
In the wake of F1’s latest hate campaigns against Jack Doohan and Yuki Tsunoda, two Formula 2 drivers have now become the victims of vicious online abuse.
After the first-lap pile-up in Monaco recently, Alex Dunne was driven to delete all social media apps from his phone – and was visibly emotional when addressing the issue during a press conference in Barcelona.
Then, in Barcelona, Richard Verschoor shared threatening messages he received – including death threats – that he received “within five minutes” of his clash with Arvid Lindblad.
“Verschoor, you better run, because I will chase you with a knife,” Verschoor told Ziggo Sport as he read out one message at random.
“That’s obviously not desirable,” he laughed.
More seriously, however, he thinks a new influx of fans to motor racing fundamentally misunderstand motorsport.
“If you support a driver now, that means that you hate the opponent and I don’t think that’s right,” said Verschoor, who knows his Dutch countryman Max Verstappen well.
“In my opinion, that is not how motorsport works. It is actually a great thing that we do not have a home and away aspect in our sport. “Everyone sitting in the stands has Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari gear on.
“So a better atmosphere should be possible.”
F1, F2 and F3 reacted to the latest controversies with a joint statement, declaring that they “firmly condemn abuse and harassment of any form”.
We’ll continue to collectively act upon and report abuse to social media platforms,” the joint statement added. “At the heart of it all, there are humans.”
Verschoor, however, said he wishes he has the same freedom to retaliate the abuse he receives.
“We are actually stopped when we want to say something, even though we are not the ones doing something wrong,” he said. “We are not allowed to address these things, because that could lead to even more hate.”
Verschoor says he thinks many fans do not understand the impact the abuse has on racing drivers.
“I happened to be sitting next to the guy who is now number 1 in Formula 2 , Alex Dunne, in the press conference, where they asked a number of critical questions. He burst into tears, because he was reminded of everything that was sent to him after he caused that crash in Monaco.”
Verschoor says he is more able to handle the abuse than some of his rivals.
“That guy (Dunne) is only 19. Some of these guys are super young. So it’s bizarre the kind of messages they get. It goes pretty far.”
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