Max Verstappen has explained why Red Bull opted to boycott Sky Sports in Mexico, following comments made about his 2021 Formula 1 title win.
News emerged on Sunday that the entire Red Bull F1 team would snub Sky Sports indefinitely, after reporter Ted Kravitz stated that Lewis Hamilton was “robbed” of the championship last year.
Kravitz’s comments came at the recent US Grand Prix weekend, but Verstappen says the decision was not taken on that instance alone.
“It had nothing to do with this weekend, but this year it’s been a constant kind of like digging, being disrespectful, especially one particular person,” Verstappen said.
“And at one point it is enough, I don’t accept it. You can’t live in the past, you just have to move on.
“At the moment social media is a very toxic place and if you are constantly being like that live on TV, you make it constantly worse, instead of trying to make it better in the world.
“You keep disrespecting me and at one point I’m not tolerating it anymore. So that’s why I decided to stop answering.”
F1’s popularity has rocketed in recent years, with Netflix’s Drive to Survive documentary often credited with igniting the interest of many people.
With more people now tuning into races, Verstappen says it has only boosted the number of individuals who are actively writing negative or degrading comments on social media
“I think it’s just the sport is more popular, so there are more people watching, so more people are writing,” he said.
“I think it’s just that. It’s not great that they are allowed to write these kinds of things.
“I hope we can kind of come up with an algorithm that stops people being keyboard warriors, because these kinds of people would never come up to you and say these kind of things in front of your face.
“It’s because they are sitting in front of their desk or whatever at home, being upset, being frustrated and they can write whatever they like because the platform allows them to.
“That can be really damaging and hurtful to some people and it’s not how it should be.”
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