Mercedes has revealed the overwhelming extent of Kimi Antonelli online abuse after Red Bull’s Helmut Marko publicly accused him of deliberately letting Lando Norris pass during Formula 1‘s Qatar Grand Prix.
The incident stemmed from a late-race error by the young Italian racing driver as he was chasing Carlos Sainz for a podium spot while defending from Norris.
Under intense pressure and navigating the dirty air from Sainz’s car ahead, Antonelli lost rear tyre grip and drifted off track at Turn 10 on the penultimate lap, inadvertently enabling Norris to seize fourth place.
This handed the Formula 1 championship leader two additional points against race winner Max Verstappen going into their title showdown in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase informed the Red Bull driver over the radio that Antonelli had seemed to let Norris pass.
While the misunderstanding was clarified after reviewing video replays following the race, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told Sky Germany it was “too obvious” that Antonelli intentionally “waved past” Norris.
The allegations were strongly denied by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, but, the damage was already done resulting in more than 1,100 abusive messages, including death threats and homophobic slurs, marking an 1100% increase over normal post-race social media activity.
The online backlash targeted not only Antonelli’s personal social media accounts but also Mercedes’ official channels, with more than 330 abusive comments and messages flooding their platforms.
Following the spike in hostility, Antonelli responded by blacking out his Instagram profile picture, highlighting the severity of the abuse.
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Marko issued an apology to German publication F1-Insider, saying that after watching replays, he recognised it was not deliberate.
“The first time, Antonelli could have put up a bit more of a fight,” he said. “The second time, it was a driving error and not intentional. I’m sorry that Antonelli got so much flak online. To make it perfectly clear: He didn’t let Norris past intentionally.”
Red Bull later released a team statement retracting the claims and expressed regret over the abuse Antonelli received.
The statement read: “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.
“Replay footage shows Antonelli momentarily losing control of his car, thus allowing Norris to pass him. We sincerely regret that this has led to to Kimi receiving online abuse.”
Toto Wolff dismissed Helmut Marko comments as “brainless” and “total nonsense.”
“Helmut, this is total, utter nonsense,” Wolff said. “That blows my mind, even to hear that. We’re fighting for P2 in the championship, which is important for us.
“Kimi is fighting for a potential P3. How brainless can you be to even say something like this?
“It annoys me, because I’m annoyed with the race itself, how it went. I’m annoyed with the mistake at the end. I’m annoyed with other mistakes and then hearing such nonsense blows my mind.”
Mercedes has taken the issue seriously, documenting the “severe or suspect comments” flagged by their community management tools and raising the matter with the FIA, which runs the United Against Online Abuse campaign.
This initiative, launched in 2023, aims to combat online hate across all sports disciplines, and the FIA issued a statement condemning abuse and harassment in any form, urging respect and compassion towards drivers, teams, and the wider motorsport community.
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