Red Bull have been criticised for their reaction to Nelson Piquet racially abusing Sir Lewis Hamilton.
The Milton Keynes side dropped junior driver Juri Vips from their programme after the Estonian used a racist slur during a livestream on Twitch, and comments made by Piquet back in November were uncovered ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix.
Piquet was reviewing the incident between Hamilton and Max Verstappen last season, and he used a racist term to describe the seven-time world champion.
Multiple teams and drivers came to the defence of Hamilton, but Red Bull did not issue a public statement.
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The Austrian side had already issued a release that stated their condemnation of any racist or discriminatory language or actions when they dropped Vips from their system.
Team principal Christian Horner confirmed the team’s disappointment at the comments made by Piquet.
“Of course, we’re appalled at Nelson’s comments and it’s from an interview from some time ago,” he told Sky Sports.
“We’ve obviously had an incident with one of our young drivers at the end of last week and we took very definitive action where he’d made a racist comment.
“And so we took action and we immediately removed him from the team.
“So we put out a statement about Juri, and this one comes out, and we felt we’d made a very strong statement through action of actually dropping Juri from the team, from not in any way condoning any form of racism or discrimination.”
The 48-year-old asserted that the team is completely behind Hamilton as he continues to battle abhorrent racism, but the fact that they had already dropped Vips and released a statement about him was affirmation enough of their complete opposition to racism and discrimination.
“We’d put out a statement earlier in the day about Juri, about having zero tolerance for racism.
“To then put out another statement about Nelson Piquet… of course we’re fully behind Lewis, we’re fully signed up to the Hamilton commission.
“And we felt that actions sometimes talk louder than words and the action that we took with Juri, which was obviously was draconian, but in line with the policy that we have.”
Fans on social media were not impressed with this stance though, with fans suggesting that they should be condemning every individual incident of racism, not just one that then covers them for the rest.
“So in that case, that one statement is covering for all future racist comments too? What a joke,” said one user.
“[Dr] Helmut [Marko] is probably happy about that though, he’s free to express his thoughts…”
“So they’re (rightfully) sanctioning a younger guy but ignoring the older, more powerful dudes indiscretions? Ok got it,” said another.
The Briton did receive some praise for his reaction though due to his public anti-racism stance.
“Never understood why people hate him so much F1 legend imo,” stated a user.
“Very intelligent interview from Horner,” added another.
READ: Piquet used racial slur against Hamilton because of Verstappen links
“He clarified that Max doesn’t condone Nelson’s actions as some people saw it as Max defending Nelson, as well as showing RB don’t tolerate the behaviour. Articulate as always.”
Piquet has been banned from the paddock as a result of his actions, and it has now transpired that he allegedly made further racist and homophobic comments about Hamilton in his controversial interview.