Foul play claims rejected

ZANDVOORT - AlphaTauri have condemned "accusations of foul play" against the Formula One team and Red Bull's head of strategy, after Yuki Tsunoda's retirement in Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix led to online abuse.

The Japanese triggered a virtual safety car (VSC) when he stopped by the side of the track, an incident that ultimately helped Red Bull's race winner and runaway championship leader Max Verstappen.

Mercedes' seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who had been contending for the race win but eventually finished fourth, angrily told his team over the radio during the race at Zandvoort that "that VSC has stuffed us".

The sequence of events was bizarre, with Tsunoda initially pulling over because he feared a wheel was loose and then returning to the pits - from where he was sent out again and promptly stopped.

Sky Sports noted that Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff had questioned the Japanese driver's DNF, saying: "If we were fighting for the championship, that would be something I would closely look at.

"Now I think what needs to be investigated, for the safety of drivers and everybody, the driver stopped, unbuckled, drove a full lap, came in, the problem wasn't solved, they put the seat belts back on and he drove out and stopped the car again and that probably changed the outcome of a race that we maybe could have won."

In its race report on Sunday, the BBC said: "As Mercedes saw it, Red Bull's sister team had acted in an extremely odd way that had given their lead driver a major advantage, allowing him to pit and retain the lead, rather than drop to third."

Tsunoda was later reprimanded by F1 stewards for driving his car with the seat belts loosened.

PlanetF1 and Sky Sports later reported that FIA stewards had found he had a problem with the differential on his car, which the Japanese had also suspected in his radio conversations with the team.

But that mattered little to fans with AlphaTauri saying on Monday that they and Hannah Schmitz, strategy head for Red Bull, had been targeted online after the race.

"Such hateful behaviour cannot be tolerated, and to entertain accusations of foul play is unacceptable, untrue and completely disrespectful towards both Hannah and us," the team said in a statement posted on social media.

"We have always competed independently, fairly and with the highest levels of respect and sportsmanship.

"Yuki had a failure that the team didn't immediately detect which caused him to stop on track. To suggest anything different is insulting and categorically incorrect."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner and Verstappen both said after the race that the VSC episode had made matters trickier for them.

Hamilton retweeted a message from a fan account calling the comments directed at Schmitz "intolerable". The message was later removed, with the account explaining that it had incited further comments and ended up doing more harm than good.

REUTERS