Chief Strategy Officer at Red Bull hanna schmitz Received hateful messages online (Image: Getty)

AlphaTauri has denied allegations of misconduct at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix and announced “hateful behaviour” directed at Red Bull strategist Hannah Schmitz.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen extended his championship lead with a victory at Zandvoort, but suffered a strange situation in the closing stages of the race.

After pitting, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda stopped on track claiming that one of his wheels was not properly adjusted, but the team said nothing was wrong and they should continue.

He still felt something was wrong in the back of the car so he went back to the pits for new tires and after a long stop another car just didn’t stop him back on the track and beyond. withdraw from the race.

This introduced a virtual safety car, allowing Verstappen to make a free pit stop for new tyres, effectively ending Sir Lewis Hamilton’s race-winning challenge.

With AlphaTauri being Red Bull’s B-team, some disgruntled supporters have made unsubstantiated accusations that the Tsunoda incident was designed to give Verstappen a win.

There was also an online exploit against Red Bull chief strategist Schmitz in a recent case of high-profile hate mail targeting members of the F1 community.

On Monday, AlphaTauri issued a public statement condemning the abuse, saying:

“Such hateful behavior is unacceptable and the accusations of cheating are unacceptable, false and completely disrespectful to both Hannah and us.

“We have always played independently, fairly and with the highest level of respect and sportsmanship.”

Yuki stopped en route after experiencing a malfunction that was not immediately detected by the team.

“Suggesting anything different is insulting and totally wrong.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff did not suggest that Red Bull and AlphaTauri carry out the VSC, but called for a full investigation of the incident, given the safety of stopping and restarting the car.

“If we were fighting for the championship, I would have watched it carefully,” Wolff said after the race.

The result of a race that should have been won may have changed. In the simulation, Max was eight seconds behind us, he predicted a fair shot and the race organizers said the win was over.

“Now we are thinking about what needs to be investigated for the safety of the drivers and everyone.

“The driver stopped, started, turned around and stopped, but the problem persisted, he rebuckled his seat belt, got out and stopped again.”

Tsunoda was penalized 10 grid places for this weekend’s upcoming race in Italy for driving without a seat belt.

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