Lando Norris, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Losail International Circuit, 2025

Mercedes welcomed Red Bull’s statement clarifying its view of Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s driving after he was targeted for abuse online following the Qatar Grand Prix.

Antonelli received abusive messages after Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase and Red Bull motorsport consultant claimed the rookie deliberately allowed Lando Norris to overtake him during the race.

Red Bull issued a statement on Monday stating any such claims were wrong. Marko subsequently retracted his comments.

Mercedes’ deputy technical director Simone Resta said it was “quite disappointing” to see the abuse directed at Antonelli and said the team welcomed Red Bull’s clarification.

“We take online abuse very seriously,” he said in a video published by the team. “With the communications team, there’s a lot of work on tools and platform to create a safe area for the fans to interact with the team.

“On top of it, it was great to see on Monday a statement from Red Bull, stating their position. And we really appreciated this one.”

He said Antonelli went off the track due to a combination of the turbulence from Carlos Sainz Jnr’s car ahead and the fact he was pushing hard on tyres which were older than Norris’s.

“He was driving quite on the limit,” said Resta. “He was on a longer stint than Norris behind.

“Also he was trying to catch up Sainz ahead. He was entering into the DRS zone, and so very close to Sainz. And like I said before, losing quite a bit of aerodynamic load with the wake effect. So he was trying to attack, but he also was trying to defend. And he was on the limit. And there’s a snap and he lost just enough to lose position to Norris.”

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