Fans have taken to social media to criticise Sky Sports F1 for adding a contentious aspect to their coverage of Max Verstappen’s crash with George Russell.
At the Spanish Grand Prix, the four-time world champion seemed to purposefully slam into the side of the Mercedes driver, earning him a 10-second time penalty and three penalty points.
Verstappen was dropped to P10, giving Barcelona just one point, and is now one penalty point away from a race ban.
However, Nico Rosberg demanded that the champion be disqualified on Sky Sports Germany’s broadcast, and viewers in the UK were given the opportunity to vote in a poll over whether Verstappen should have been disqualified by scanning a QR code.
Sky Sports feature causes controversy with F1 fans\
However, the feature on Sky’s coverage caused some complaints with several accounts claiming the broadcaster had an agenda against Verstappen.
One account accused them of having an agenda, which has since received 5.3K likes, and wrote: “Why do I get the impression that Sky Sports F1 has the biggest agenda against Charles and Max?
“We had Schiff pleading for Charles to get a penalty, a poll for if Max should be disqualified, and Brookes saying that Max’s actions take the shine off his T1 move in Imola.”
Another post with 5.9K likes, simply screenshotted the coverage with a ‘dead’ emoji in disbelief at the feature.
However, others online jumped to Sky’s defence and one user accused the fan base of being sensitive.
“What I’m learning is, every fanbase thinks Sky Sports hate them,” they wrote.
Another user said that, overall, Sky gave the champion fair coverage and commended Rachel Brookes for pushing Verstappen during the altercation.
Here, I would somewhat disagree. They wrote, “I think the Charles thing is a bit much, but they treat him very well in general.”
However, the Max situation is very reasonable on their part. Absolutely awful sportsmanship and driving, and Brookes gave him just the proper amount of encouragement.
GPFans reached out to Sky Sports F1, but they chose not to comment.
