© Williams Racing
Nicholas Latifi says Lewis Hamilton “had his own emotions to kind of deal with” after the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but he did “send me a very nice message, fully in support”.
Nicholas Latifi’s crash at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, started a chain of events which culminated in race director Michael Masi disregarding the rules which govern the use of the Safety Car, and costing Lewis Hamilton an almost sure title win.
Latifi later revealed that he was a target of online abuse, and has even received death threats from those who held him responsible for what happened.
Now, during his appearance on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Latifi revealed that Hamilton reached out to him in those moments.
“Lewis did send me a message to reach out to me,” the Canadian said.
“He was kind of detaching from the whole world of social media and whatnot himself.
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
“He obviously had his own emotions to kind of deal with, what he was fighting with. But he did send me a very nice message, fully in support.
“I even had messages from some other top Mercedes team members that reached out, along with countless visible ones from different team accounts, different drivers and whatnot.”
Latifi added that he left social media for a few days as a result of the abuse.
“It was maybe two days when I did take social media off my phone and then I returned to it slowly, reinstalled the apps on my phone.
“In reality I did nothing wrong. If I had purposely crashed, that’s a different story.
“But I was just doing my own race,” he concluded.
