(Image Credit: Kimi Antonelli via Instagram)
Following the end of the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, Gianpiero Lambiase, the race engineer for Red Bull, and Helmut Marko, the team’s advisor, openly stated that Antonelli had deliberately allowed Lando Norris to overtake him just before the finish line. This action was decisive, Norris received two more points in the championship, which was the case, thereby increasing his lead over the Red Bull driver.
However, video evidence proved that the overtake was not meant to be so, Antonelli had temporarily lost control of his car due to the pressure and that allowed Norris to get round him. Shortly after that Antonelli’s social media accounts were filled with thousands of hateful messages and death threats. Red Bull responded to the negative publicity by making an official statement ‘There have been … comments … suggesting that Antonelli was the one who let Lando Norris go. This is clearly wrong,’ they said. ‘Playback footage clearly shows that Antonelli lost control of the car for a split second and that was when he allowed Norris to go past. We are really sorry that it has led to Kimi getting abused online’. The apology was practically a retraction of accusations of misconduct made earlier, and it recognized the incident as an error in racing rather than a deliberate act.
Red Bull also tried to separate themselves from the online abuse that was directed at Antonelli. At the same time, Toto Wolff, the head of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, with no doubts called the accusations ‘brain dead’ and stood by Antonelli saying that there was no reason for him to deliberately lose his position. The whole incident has done more than just expose the young drivers’ high stress conditions moreover, it has also shown the necessity for top teams to take special care in making public statements particularly when online harassment and mental health issues are involved.
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