Franco Colapinto has spoken out against the increasing online abuse in Formula 1. According to the Alpine driver, the responsibility does not lie solely with the fans, but the drivers themselves must also be more aware of the impact of their words. He admits that he personally experiences little negative commentary; only the opinions of important people around him catch his attention.
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Formula 1 has grown significantly on social media in recent years, but this development also has a downside. The FIA and Formula 1 are trying to tackle online abuse through campaigns and with the help of AI to detect hateful comments. “That’s how society is nowadays,” Colapinto sighed in an interview with Autosport. “And that is something we as athletes, I think, need to speak out more about and set a boundary. As drivers, we need to make people understand how much impact their words can have on others.”
“I think they have never really experienced that themselves, because they never received those messages or because they think we never read them anyway,” explained the Alpine driver. “But we are now in a situation where many athletes are deleting their social media.” The message from the 23-year-old Argentine is clear: “I think we as people need to be much more aware of the impact of our words.”
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Drivers must take responsibility
Drivers can also contribute to a less hostile atmosphere within the paddock, he warned. “I also partly blame ourselves as drivers, because sometimes we say things without thinking about the power of our words.” As an example, he mentioned the discussion after Oliver Bearman’s heavy crash in Japan. Colapinto states that such issues can be better discussed directly. “I sent him (Bearman, ed.) a message right after the race, but he never replied. We didn’t talk about it afterwards, but I did get criticized for it in the media.”
“We can solve those kinds of things in a different way: it’s much easier not to make it public. It’s very important that people realize the impact their words have,” he emphasized again. Although Colapinto knows how passionate F1 fans can be, he says online criticism hardly affects him personally. “It only affects me if I get criticism from my own environment, from people I really admire and trust. If someone shouts things from behind a keyboard without any knowledge, it doesn’t affect me.”
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