Franco Colapinto's fans' abuse and threats could cost him his F1 future

Did you know that it’s really hard to get a job as an F1 driver?

22 people in the world are allowed to do that on a full-time basis at any one time and, unless you’re one of a feted handful, every year is a dogfight just to stay on the grid and employed for another season.

Some drivers miss out because they can’t quite pull the sponsorship and financial backing together for a smaller team to pull the trigger. Some miss out because the team wants a driver of a certain nationality attached to their organisation, and they aren’t it. Some, occasionally, miss out because their talent doesn’t outweigh the headache of actually employing them.

Speaking of which...hey, Franco Colapinto has a vocal fanbase, doesn’t he?

Just to get this out of the way early: none of this is a suggestion that this is his fault, or that he should in some way be able to control what his fans say and/or do. He’s not superhuman. This is about them, not him.

But it’s not good that Colapinto’s fans make the headlines more than their favourite driver, man.

READ MORE: Lando Norris calls for FIA bans after Azerbaijan GP crash: 'Not driving that deserves to be in F1'

Colapinto fans vs F1 and decency

In the last 18 months, there had been four – now five – fairly major stories about fans of the Argentine directing pretty heinous abuse at people they believe have wronged their driver. Jack Doohan had to go to the Miami Grand Prix flanked by security because of threats made against him for the crime of ‘driving a car that Colapinto fans would rather their guy was driving instead’.

Yuki Tsunoda was the subject of a torrent of racist abuse for an entirely meaningless impeding incident in practice before Colapinto’s first race replacing Doohan that season, after which the Argentine urged his fans to ‘keep it respectful’, and the FIA were forced to release a statement after their stewards were abused for (correctly) giving Colapinto a penalty at the Dutch Grand Prix this year.

As recently as a few days ago, his own team-mate Pierre Gasly opened up on ‘disturbing’ abuse and threats which had been sent not just to him, but to his family and girlfriend after a racing incident which – once again – did not actually negatively impact Colapinto’s racing position.

Now, after a frustrated Lando Norris called for race bans for instigators of crashes like the one (started by a huge Colapinto misjudgment) which had taken him out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix just minutes earlier, the Brit’s Instagram comments and McLaren’s Twitter replies have been flooded with thousands upon thousands of abusive comments – many of them homophobic in nature.

Alpine put out a blanket statement against online abuse on Sunday morning after the race. De facto team principal Flavio Briatore told Colapinto’s fans to behave themselves (and threatened to stop him from talking to Argentine media) before the Baku fallout.

In the span of a month or so, Colapinto’s fanbase has gone from occasional issue to full-blown team distraction. The friendly fire against Gasly? The warning in midweek before another blowup on Saturday and Sunday? The unavoidable fact is that at this point, Colapinto’s fans are an actual problem for the team.

Colapinto's fans are a reason not to employ him

F1 fans can be incredibly irritating online. We’ve been over that before, as it happens. But there’s only one fanbase in the sport that is as consistently and overwhelmingly over the top and prone to genuinely hateful pile-ons right now.

A classic piece of professional advice is ‘be easy to employ’. Essentially, turn up for things on time, be efficient, don’t bring an iced coffee to a job interview don’t give anyone reason to think, at any point, ‘oh that guy’.

Right now, Colapinto’s fans are an actual reason not to employ him. If this continues – government ministers taking shots at rival drivers on Twitter, slurs upon slurs upon slurs, the fire alarm pulled when nothing of any consequence happened – then some teams will look at the choice between him and another driver of a similar talent level, and they’ll pick the one whose fans won’t make headlines every few months.

Just like on the track, the margins in the F1 job market are razor thin.

Right now, the Argentine is currently getting moderately outperformed by his more experienced team-mate, is a little loose with the media (there might be a small reckoning coming for his casual use of a Spanish homophobic slur in a recent interview, currently being overshadowed somewhat by the rest of his last week), and just really annoyed his boss by crashing into his team-mate and ruining a good points day.

In other words, it’s not a good time to have another negative story in circulation thanks to his fans. They are becoming an active detriment to his career.

You like the guy? Think he’s great? Want him to have a long and successful career in F1? Stop attacking other people in his name. It’s that simple. If you can’t do that, it’s him who’ll pay the price.

F1 HEADLINES: Ferrari boss addresses Christian Horner speculation as champion calls for FIA ban

READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton calls for Ferrari investigation after Azerbaijan Grand Prix flop

Written by

Chris Deeley - Editor

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