Red Bull say they “sincerely regret” comments made at the Qatar Grand Prix that led to Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli receiving death threats.
Antonelli changed his Instagram profile picture to black, external on Monday morning after receiving hurtful messages on social media, several of which were death threats, Mercedes said.
Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase said over team radio to the Dutchman that it “looked like” Antonelli had “just pulled over and let Norris through” after the Italian ran wide at Turn 10 on the penultimate lap and lost fourth place to the McLaren driver.
The incident resulted in Norris gaining an extra two points, meaning the Briton leads Verstappen by 12 points rather than 10 going into a three-way title decider in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
A Red Bull statement issued on Monday said: “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 Kimi receiving online abuse.”
The Red Bull statement stopped short of an apology for the accusation that Antonelli had deliberately let Norris through.
However, a Mercedes spokesperson said Lambiase had apologised to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, who had confronted him after the race about the comments.
Team representative Bradley Lord, who was part of the conversation, told BBC Sport Lambiase had apologised for the remarks “once I showed him the video [of the incident] he hadn’t seen”.
Mercedes said the comments against Antonelli marked a “1,100% increase in the abuse we sadly usually see on a Sunday of a race weekend”.
Anontelli’s channel is moderated, so he won’t have seen the messages.
Wolff said after the race that the comments were “brainless”.
“This is total, utter nonsense. That blows my mind even to hear that. We are fighting for P2 in the [constructors’] championship, which is important for us. Kimi is fighting for a potential P3 [race finish].
“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.
“I spoke to GP [Lambiase]. I saw him and obviously he was emotional in that moment because they needed a P3, I guess, to help win the championship, now they need more.
“I said to him: ‘He just went off.’ He had a bit of a moment in the previous corner and then had less entry speed into that left-hander, put the gas down and at that moment, that can happen, then lost the position. So with GP, everything is clear. We cleared the air.
“He said he didn’t see the situation.
“I said to GP that there’s quite a social media storm. He said, ‘sorry if I caused that, I didn’t see the incident.'”
Antonelli said he had been pushing hard to try to catch the Williams of Carlos Sainz, who was in third place just in front of him.
“It was really hard with the dirty air and just the tyres were overheating a lot,” Antonelli said.
“I was pushing quite a lot to get close to Carlos. Eventually I was in DRS, or very close, but into Turn Nine I went in a bit quicker and had a massive moment.
“A bit unexpected but just lost the rear and went off track. Just need to look why the mistake arrived and what I did different.
“I went in quicker but not massively different. A shame to lose the place because it would have been two more points.”
