It will soon be a year since Lewis Hamilton lost everything at the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. While leading the race and heading for an eighth F1 world title, Nicholas Latifi messed up a corner, crashing out and the safety car was called. Once the race was restarted, Hamilton gave way to Max Verstappen, losing the race and championship in the dying moments. Insulted on social networks, the Canadian Latifi was supported by the British driver.
History was written before our eyes in Abu Dhabi in 2021. Max Verstappen won his first Formula One world championship title thanks to a race event that brought everything back to life just as the Grand Prix seemed to be over.
Lewis Hamilton was leading the race at a steady pace until Nicholas Latifi crashed out of the Grand Prix, the Canadian’s incident reshuffled all the cards as race direction decided to send the drivers back behind the safety car for a single lap, thus benefiting Max Verstappen who was otherwise behind.
“I don’t think it really has anything to do with the sport”
Nicholas Latifi had subsequently received death threats on social media from some malicious Hamilton fans. The Canadian looks back on this difficult moment:
“The consequences were not very pleasant. It’s just the bad side of social media these days. I don’t think it really had anything to do with the sport,
“It was obviously a high-profile incident because of the outcome of what happened. It wasn’t just a race at the beginning of the year, it was something at the end of the year with the battle for the championship,
“Tons of tension and emotions for the fans because it was a very exciting season.”
Hamilton supported him
During this difficult time, Nicholas Latifi was supported by Lewis Hamilton.
“It was a very positive thing to do. Lewis sent me a message to contact me. He sort of detached himself from the world of social networking and everything else,
“He obviously had his own emotions to deal with, which he was struggling with. But he sent me a very nice, supportive message. I even got messages from other members of the Mercedes team, as well as countless visible messages from different teams, different drivers, etc.” admits Latifi.
It wasn’t just Hamilton robbed on the day. Every fan of F1 took a hit…and though his fans won’t want to admit, Max’s rep took a hit, too. Not because he was involved in the denial of a fair outcome but his team’s management wanted the ‘win at all costs’ and harrassed race control into making errors…though Race Control might well have made those errors anyway.