Sky Sports F1 presenter takes action over 'vile abuse' after Lewis Hamilton apology

Rachel Brookes walks into the F1 paddock as Lewis Hamilton (inset) looks on — Photo: © IMAGO

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Sky Sports F1 presenter takes action over 'vile abuse' after Lewis Hamilton apology

Rachel Brookes and Lewis Hamilton were involved in a tense

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Thursday 12 June 2025 13:12

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Sky Sports F1 presenter Rachel Brookes has opened up on 'vile abuse' she received in the aftermath of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

Brookes conducted several tense post-race interviews with drivers in the aftermath of what was a dramatic race in Barcelona.

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Max Verstappen adopted a fiery attitude with the broadcaster after he had appeared to intentionally crash into Mercedes' George Russell, who also was tense in his post-race interview when trying to condemn Verstappen's actions.

On top of this, Lewis Hamilton appeared rather downbeat when talking about his 'terrible' day in Spain, even saying to Brookes that he 'doesn't know what else to say'.

Hamilton later apologised to Brookes for acting that way in his interview, as revealed by David Croft on the F1 Show.

However, Brookes has now revealed that she received an 'enormous amount' of abuse online in the aftermath of the Spanish GP, describing the actions she has had to take as F1 heads to Canada.

"Have arrived in Montreal for the Canadian GP race weekend. One of my favourite venues on the calendar," she wrote in a story on her Instagram page.

"I will be posting on here as usual but comments/tags/mentions on here and on X have been disabled for the foreseeable future due to the enormous amounts of vile abuse I was sent after the Spanish GP.

"I may switch them back on at a later date but for now they will stay off. Time to go racing, it should be an exciting weekend!"

Spain's drama spills over into interviews

Verstappen's move on Russell landed him a 10-second time penalty, which demoted him down to 10th in the final classification, but it has been hotly debated since then.

In his fiery post-race interview with Brookes, Verstappen asked the broadcaster whether it mattered if his collision with Russell was intentional or not.

The Dutchman then went on to say that he'd rather talk about the whole race, seemingly trying to skate over the incident completely, but he ended the interview saying it was Brookes' 'opinion' that his move may have taken away from his driving prowess.

Online abuse towards F1 paddock personnel is seemingly getting worse, with Channel 4's Lee McKenzie recently opening up on abuse she has suffered.

On top of this, drivers Yuki Tsunoda, Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto were all subject to awful abuse during the Imola GP weekend, leading FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to release an official statement on the matter.

The FIA have also been promoting their United Against Online Abuse campaign, aimed at trying to tackle the problem.