Does F1 have a toxic fan problem?

The Imola weekend featured many great things about Formula 1, and that includes the majority of its fanbase who above all else want to see a compelling motor race and the greatest race drivers on the planet.

This is evident on pretty much every single circuit F1 travels to on its calendar and that hasn't changed for decades. However, the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix was sadly noted for the disgusting online abuse aimed at Red Bull star Yuki Tsunoda as well as former Alpine driver Jack Doohan.

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In a nutshell, Tsunoda was targeted online by social media accounts following his furious gesticulations towards Argentine racer Franco Colapinto during a session having considered himself being blocked on track by the Alpine star.

Colapinto, back in F1 after replacing Jack Doohan, then spun off the circuit at Tamburello during qualifying, with an online parody account posting a joke that was wrongly interpreted as Jack Doohan's father Mick laughing about the incident.

That then started more abuse aimed towards Doohan's family, and the scale of the two incidents was so much that Jack Doohan, Alpine and even Formula 1's governing body the FIA were compelled to issue statements reminding so-called fans of their responsibility and conduct to act with more respect to the drivers, teams and their families - all of course are just human beings trying to do their jobs and get on with their lives.

But is this a Formula 1 issue? And if it is, how do they deal with it? Sadly it's nothing new to the sport. The intense rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen over the 2021 drivers' title made social media unusable at times due to the bitter hatred many fan accounts were inciting and adding as controversial moments followed one after the other right up to and including the final lap when Verstappen overtook Hamilton to snatch the F1 crown in one of the sport's most incredible moments - but that evening is for another time.

So in that respect, F1 does have an issue... but then so do many other sports when it comes to social media abuse. But it's not a problem Formula 1 can solve, at the very least, on its own, no matter how many 'be nicer to other people' statements you wish to see or be written. We can see that in many different forms across many different sports that, while these statements mean well and don't do any harm, they appear to have done little over the decades to eliminate these issues.

If it's solutions you want then actions have to be taken beyond pens, paper and keyboards. What makes people so vile in their conduct they feel the need to be so abusive to someone? Who even has the opportunity during their day to think that is worthy of their time? There's two answers, trolls whose sole purpose is to gain notoriety and a reaction, and individuals who seem to value the lives of other people they very likely have no direct relationship with above their own.

Long standing F1 issue

It's probably existed forever in some form. For instance could you imagine a social media equivalent concerning the controversial 1994 and 1997 title finales? Fans were just as passionate then as they are now, only you didn't have a social media platform that could easily show it. Look at Silverstone and Zandvoort, you think those boos for the likes Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are new? Even Michael Schumacher's horror leg break at Silverstone was disgustingly cheered back in 1999 by sections of fans.

So in general, it's out of F1's power to eradicate it. Sadly the issue appears to be on a gigantically larger scale on a societal level in different cultures all around the world. That's one of teaching people from a young age the value of kindness and respect for others as well as for yourself.

No matter if it's self motivated or incited by others, any time spent typing hateful and abusive content to post online is time wasted when you could be using that same time to make yourself a better, more skilled and more valued person.

F1 can and does help in promoting these messages, but arguably the biggest culprit of the problem is the lack of personal responsibility. This is beyond Formula 1's remit and is instead a societal issue given the toxic abuse problem stretches to other sports, politics and public life in general. F1 can and does assist fighting these issues, but it can never solve it.

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