(Motorsport-Total.com) – Formula 1 has gained enormous popularity in recent years – not least on social media. Although this is basically a positive development, it has a downside: hate comments and hostility against drivers and team members are drastically increasing in the premier class.
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The FIA and Formula 1 are trying to address the problem in various ways, such as through the “United Against Online Abuse” initiative, the declaration of a global day of action on July 7, or the use of AI tools on their own platforms to detect and filter out hateful comments.
Despite these efforts, many actors in the paddock continue to face online hate regularly. According to Alpine driver Franco Colapinto, this is partly because spectators do not always understand the complexity of certain situations – but he also sees it as a reflection of society.
“Society is simply like this nowadays. And I believe that as athletes we need to become a bit louder and draw a clear line,” Colapinto says in an exclusive interview with the global language edition of Motorsport.com, a sister platform of Motorsport-Total.com in the Motorsport Network.
“We as drivers have to make people understand how much their words can affect others. Many probably have never experienced this themselves because they never receive such messages, or they probably assume that we don’t read them anyway.”
“But we have now reached a point where most athletes delete their social media channels. I think, as human beings, we need to become much more aware of the impact our words have.”
Drivers also bear responsibility
Colapinto emphasizes that the drivers can also contribute by not adding fuel to the fire – for example, in post-race interviews: “I hold us drivers partly responsible for this. Sometimes we speak in the media in a way where we are not even aware of the impact of our words.”
An example was the phase after Oliver Bearman’s serious accident in Japan. The Haas driver assigned Colapinto partial blame for the incident in a podcast afterwards. The Argentine is convinced that the matter would have been better resolved privately.
“I sent him a message right after the race, but he never replied. We never talked about it afterwards, and then he says something like that publicly about me. These are exactly the things we can handle differently – in a much simpler way and without going public with it.”
“And making people realize that their words actually have an effect is also a very important point,” says the Alpine driver.
Hate online often affects the environment
Colapinto knows about the passion of Formula 1 fans – not least his Argentine supporters – but he calls for keeping things in perspective, no matter what happens on the track.
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Hateful messages hardly affect him personally, but he finds it all the more problematic when family members are confronted with them – a point that Max Verstappen has also addressed in the past.
“Personally, as Franco, these things don’t affect me much,” he says. “It only affects me when people from my close environment – people I really admire and completely trust – say something to me. I listen to them very much.”
“But when someone sits behind the keyboard and writes stuff without any idea of the background, it leaves me completely cold.”
Shocking mental strain on F1 weekends
Nevertheless, these side effects are part of the daily life of a Formula 1 driver and stand in strong contrast to the junior categories.
It is precisely in this area – dealing with external pressure, constant public scrutiny, and all related obligations – that Colapinto says he has made significant progress: “F1 is much more political, and no one really tells you that beforehand,” he says.
“You simply cannot prepare to be a Formula 1 driver and handle everything that comes at you. It’s a completely different world than F2. As an F1 driver, you might spend only ten percent of the time in the car; it’s no longer just about driving.”
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“I consider this one of the trickiest tasks because you are confronted with an extremely large number of things all at once overnight. That’s the side no one sees – but it’s shocking how mentally demanding an F1 weekend really is,” says the 23-year-old Argentine.
“Delivering constantly weekend after weekend is extremely difficult. Emotions fluctuate, the environment changes a lot, and performing at an absolute top level week after week is a huge challenge.”
“That’s something you only learn over time: how to come to terms with it personally and fully focus on that consistency,” says Colapinto.
“Finding a rhythm was exactly the point where I improved the most this year. I can manage my energy much better and no longer arrive completely exhausted before getting into the car. For me personally, that was one of the biggest steps ever.”
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