Sky Sports have only just come out of a period of controversy, following Ted Kravitz’s allegedly disrespectful comments about Max Verstappen and Red Bull, which caused the team to boycott the broadcasting giants in Mexico.
The company responsible for bringing fans live coverage of F1 race weekends had sent their F1 director Billy McGinty to the Red Bull factory to smoot things over, while only yesterday Kravitz himself announced that he and Verstappen and spoken and agreed to draw a line under the incident.
Now Sky Sports find themselves in hot water again, this time with Red Bull’s rivals Mercedes, after fans took to Twitter to express their discontent for some comments made by pundit Karun Chandhok.
Chandhok can often be found by the ‘SkyPad’, talking fans through highlights of the action and providing cutting edge analysis of incidents worth relooking at.
READ: ‘Drawn a line’: Ted Kravitz breaks silence on Max Verstappen tensions
This weekend the pundit suggested that this year’s race in Brazil will be more entertaining than last year, despite Lewis Hamilton winning the race after beginning the sprint race in P20, in a key point in the season where every point mattered.
Chandhok suggested that the seven-time world champion’s car was simply too fast for anyone to compete with, taking the credit away from the Brit for his overtaking masterclass across both the sprint race and the main event.
In a month where Sky Sports have been accused of bias against Red Bull, some fans have suggested that the company are now adding fuel to the fire of the Verstappen – Hamilton debate.
“Karun says it was “not fun” to watch Lewis in Brazil last year because his car was just too fast, never mind the fact that following and overtaking was more difficult due to dirty air in 2021. He’s had only praise for Max’s many dominant drivers this season. Fuelling the toxicity,” wrote on disgruntled Twitter user.
READ: ‘I was the quickest’: Lando Norris rues McLaren decision at Interlagos
Mercedes rocked up to the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2021 with race pace that was completely unmatchable by Red Bull, and while Chandhok has suggested that this was only because they had the superior car, maybe the fact that the Silver Arrows have achieved their first front row lockout of the season for Sunday’s race indicated that it is simply a track they perform well at.
Lewis Hamilton was granted honorary citizenship of Brazil earlier this season, and has put on a strong performance so far at the track where he clinched his first ever world championship title.
The Brit will be hoping to recreate his performance levels of 2021 to end his rotten winless run this year, preventing him from finishing a season without a victory for the first time in his career.