LONDON, United Kingdom, Feb 16 – Lewis Hamilton sent Formula 1 driver Nicholas Latifi a message of support after Latifi experienced abuse following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Canadian driver revealed he received death threats after his crash in the Yas Marina finale which helped Max Verstappen win the F1 title.
The crash caused the Safety Car to deploy which assisted Verstappen to pass long-time race leader Hamilton to win both the race and the title on a chaotic final lap.
The abuse caused Latifi to delete his social media accounts and upon his return posted an open letter condemning the abuse.
Latifi told Crash.net that a host of drivers reached out to him in support, including former world champion Hamilton.
“In terms of the support I got from it afterwards, Lewis did send me a message a few days after, I think just before I released the statement,” he said.
“I won’t go into details into what he said. I got some support from other team members at Mercedes as well. Obviously, the whole outcry of support on social media from multiple drivers, teams across so many different disciplines, was really nice to see and encouraging to see.
“Everyone agreed with the whole sentiment and message and this has not been the only incident or a situation like this of online abuse.
“For me it was not the nicest feeling on the first day. I think I got over it after two days but there’s people that unfortunately maybe don’t deal with it so well for whatever reason and it can have extremely serious consequences.”
Latifi had to get added personal security due to the death threats he received.
“I think it sounds silly to some people but at the end of the day you don’t know how serious people are,” he explained.
“All it could take is one drunk fan at an airport or bumping into someone who’s having a bad day and is intoxicated or under the influence of something and has these really extreme opinions. All it takes is that one in a million person.
“Some days I was back in London after the race and I did have some security with me when I was doing certain things. I went to the Winter Wonderland with my girlfriend because we didn’t manage to fit that in before the last block of races and I had some security detail with me on that.
“Again, it sounds funny, sounds silly, but we really did take the threats seriously because you don’t really know what could happen. Just an unfortunate part of the world we live in.”
