Since the taking over of F1 by Liberty Media, the sport became so much more accessible to the newer (and older) generations of fans due to their increased involvement in social media. At this point basically every team, manufacturer, driver, personality and even F1 itself have their accounts on platforms such as twitter and instagram. 

But sometimes because of that, speculations begin to stir. Recently Max Verstappen found himself caught in so-called “drama” after he decided to unfollow Red Bull and Honda, something that was very fast picked up and discussed by fans. It came around because the timing seemed odd, as it all happened around the time when Honda announced their departure from F1 by the end of season 2021. 

As it turned out there was no malicious intent behind this action, but due to the drama happening online Verstappen followed the accounts again.

As he explained in an interview: “That was a few weeks ago. Because I wasn’t in the mood to read the Formula One news anymore, that’s why. So I don’t know how people can relate things. I think it’s to create some drama or something. This is crazy nonsense. Yes, I have notifications on my phone all the time. Marked here, marked there… I really don’t need to know what’s in those videos. Classification here, classification there… I’m not in Formula One for that. So I thought, you know what, when I’m on Instagram, I’m going to follow other sports. I’m in the paddock every week anyway, so it’s better that way.”

He added: “I can choose not to open it if I want to, so it’s not that hard. But at one point, there was so much drama that I thought, ‘well, let’s follow them again’ and then I’m not going to look at Instagram and all that stuff anymore, that’s fine too.”

Social media definitely gave the fans, especially the younger audiences that F1 is trying to attract a much more detailed insight into the work of the sport, the teams, and the lives of the drivers itself. With drivers such as Lando Norris being a pioneer of the social media game within the sport, that surely brought a big chunk of new fans to follow the sport, we received a much more “relatable” image of a racing driver - not one who is put on a pedestal, but someone who much more resembles “regular, every-day people”. Another example could be Lewis Hamilton, who uses his platform to address inequality and many socio-political events happening in the current state of the world. But as much as those examples give a fresh outlook on the social media within F1, situations like the one of Max Verstappen reminds us its not always all fun, and drama and speculations can brew very fast when social media is accessible just with a click of a finger.