George Russell has addressed the ongoing online fan backlash that he’s had to go through recently with allegations of ‘Lewis Hamilton being sabotaged at Mercedes. The driver admits that social media can be a double-edged sword where there is both a positive and negative side to things.The entire episode appears to have its roots in Monaco, where George Russell got the upgraded front wing as Lewis Hamilton passed on the opportunity to use it.
Hamilton did mention to the media that Russell had the upgraded wing but didn’t give the complete context. To add to this, the driver also made a strange claim that he didn’t expect to ever beat Russell in qualifying this season.All of this, coupled with Lewis Hamilton getting bumped off a podium finish by George Russell in Canada, was something that didn’t go down well with the fans. There was a lot of backlash by the fans online, with comments flooding Mercedes and George Russell’s social media.
Talking to the media, including Racingnews365, about this, George Russell revealed that he knew about the backlash but didn’t give it much attention. He said:“Personally I don’t look on Instagram or Twitter to be honest. I still control my own account, so I work with my team and all of the content that goes out is through me, and all of the captions, everything, is all of my messaging. But I think social media is a really double-edged sword.
There are so many funny things that you see on social media, and it keeps you up to date with so much.”He added:”But then on the flip side it’s not just myself but everybody is in the limelight. There seems to be negativity pointed towards them. Like Lewis said, you want to feel the support, not giving out negativity to others. It’s not something I’ve seen, I’ve heard about it. Of course it’s never nice to hear this stuff but that’s unfortunately the world we live in at the moment and any person in the public eye is facing.”
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