Nicholas Latifi reveals Lewis Hamilton message amid Abu Dhabi abuse storm

Nicholas Latifi has revealed that Lewis Hamilton sent him a message of support in the days after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the Canadian suffering awful abuse on social media for his crash that led to the infamous Safety Car at the end of the race.

After a battle with Mick Schumacher, Latifi had marbles on his tyres and the loss of grip sent him into the wall, prompting the Safety Car to be issued by Michael Masi.

The rest, of course, is history with what happened in the laps after and, in all the furore and controversy, some very much overstepped the mark to abuse Latifi on social media, with him sending a statement out a few days later condemning their actions.

Strong-minded, the Canadian has said that he has moved on from the fall-out but has recently explained just what went on in the days after the chequered flag, and revealed he received a class message of support from Lewis Hamilton as well as some Mercedes team members:

“Obviously immediately after the days, as I wrote, I did take social media off of my phone,” Latifi said. “All the abuse that came, I had expected.

“When I did switch my phone back on with those apps, it was clear all the things that were coming in. As I said in the statement, it was a whole range of the general trolling that you get online – which, again, I’m no stranger to. I don’t think any sportsman is a stranger to having more hateful, abusive comments. And then yes, there were the more extreme death threats, which again, obviously goes way, way over the line.

“In terms of the support I got from it afterwards, Lewis did send me a message just a few days before I released the statement.

“Obviously I won’t go into details of what he said. I did get some messages of support from other team