Briatore targets Argentine F1 fans over abuse, threatens media blackout

Alpine F1 team principal Flavio Briatore threatened a media blackout on its racer Franco Colapinto after teammate Pierre Gasly said he and his family had suffered social media abuse and threats following the Spanish Grand Prix.

The events unfolded following the race at the Madring track, where Gasly held up Colapinto, with the Frenchman finishing 12th and the Argentine driver seventh.

On Wednesday, Gasly said in an interview with F1 outlet The Race that he had faced extensive social media backlash due to the incident.

“I find it completely inappropriate, especially when it reaches out to family members, [my] girlfriend, etc. I don’t think that should be the case,” the 30-year-old driver said, adding that “a certain line that should not be crossed” had been “crossed many times” recently.

Briatore came out swinging after Gasly’s interview, saying that Argentine fans don’t support Colapinto “the right way.”

“They [should] support Franco cleanly, not what I see on social media,” he said, adding that if incidents like these continue, Colapinto “will stop talking with everybody.”

“If I see every time we have a lot of anger from the fans for no reason, then we will stop the interviews with the Argentinian television, we will stop everything, because it doesn’t make sense what I’m reading on social media,” he said.

FIA president condemns abuse The president of world motorsport governing body FIA, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, released a statement on Thursday, giving his “full support” to Gasly and calling the online abuse “completely unacceptable.”

“We simply cannot accept online hate within our sport and we all have a responsibility […] to challenge this behavior and create an environment built on respect,” he wrote. “We must continue to stand together and take meaningful action to protect everyone in our sporting community.”

What did Colapinto say? For his part, the Argentine driver said that “it’s never nice” to see such online abuse and that he and Gasly “get on very well together.”

“It happens a lot with fans in Formula 1, in any sport nowadays, it’s something very common, and it shouldn’t be,” he said. “We should be taking more care about the words that come out of the keyboards of everyone.”

It’s not the first time that fans have put Colapinto in hot water.

Last year, Jack Doohan — the driver Colapinto replaced at Alpine — said several Argentine fans sent him threats that forced him to hire private security after a fake Instagram story in which his father supposedly laughed at the Argentine driver crashing was picked up by several outlets in the country.

Former Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda was also on the receiving end of a similar barrage after he gestured angrily at Colapinto at that year’s Emilia Romagna GP.

The situation prompted a communiqué from Alpine, in which the team asked fans to “remember that behind the visor […] there is a person” and urged them to “be kind and respectful.”

Fans say criticism is targeted Gasly’s interview and the responses from Briatore and Ben Sulayem were met with criticism from fans in Argentina and Latin America, who complain that the issue is only raised when it involves Colapinto.

Argentine race driver Juan Cruz Alvarez protested on X that Colapinto “is the only driver who’s asked about this at press conferences,” despite other instances of racer’s fans harassing other drivers.

Meanwhile, journalist Adrián Puente criticized Briatore, saying “social media doesn’t have nationalities” and insisting Argentines aren’t “medieval barbarians,” while also denouncing the media blackout threats as “plain and simple censorship.”

Since Gasly’s interview, the comments on Alpine F1’s Instagram posts have been filled with ironic remarks from Argentine fans cheering the Frenchman.

“From what planet did you come, you magical croissant?” wrote a fan, mocking Víctor Hugo Morales’ historic narration of Diego Maradona’s second goal against England in the 1986 World Cup, while another wrote “Gasly and [Juan Domingo] Perón, one love.”