F1 TV has been criticised by fans for a blunt description of Daniel Ricciardo in the form of an editorialised graphic broadcast live to viewers.
The Australian has had a difficult few weeks during which his future in the sport was thrust into doubt. He has struggled for form and confidence with McLaren, and the team announced last month that he will be released from his contract a year early.
Ricciardo will be replaced by his fellow Australian Oscar Piastri after a lengthy legal battle with Alpine over the F2 champion's future. And it emerged that McLaren signed the younger racer to a contract while he was still under the impression he could fight for his future with the team.
Despite needing to land another seat elsewhere for 2023, Ricciardo has not been able to show his best form in the two races since his impending departure was announced. He followed up a 15th-placed finish in Spa was followed up by qualifying 19th at the Dutch Grand Prix.
And in their pre-race preview show for the race at Zandvoort, F1 TV used the words "struggling again" underneath the usual graphic used with his name on it as they showed some footage of the McLaren driver. While such contextual snippets are often used in the broadcaster's preview shows, not everyone was pleased with this particular label.
"There's a difference between 'Magnificent Max', as an example on the Sky F1 trail before a break, and something presented as an official graphic in a pre-race show," wrote @f1broadcasting – an account which analyses TV coverage of the sport. "Needs to be presented differently if F1 wants to do that as part of the pre-race offering."
And it seems a large number of fans agreed with that assessment. @Telferino147 wrote: "Expect than from a fan show not the official broadcasters." And @DeathByGraps added that he "thought someone had photoshopped it" at first.
Twitter user @ricrodeo was particularly unimpressed, and wrote: "Making fun of Daniel Ricciardo on your silly Twitter account is one thing, the official F1 TV broadcast is a different thing and it's incredibly disrespectful." Another word commonly used by others reacting was "unprofessional".
Not everyone felt it was over the line, though. @STP_KITT questioned: "What's wrong with that caption when Ricciardo was indeed struggling again?" And @FOMWatch admitted "it looks odd" as a screenshot out of context, but pointed out that such captions are "usually done to illustrate if they're gonna talk about an upcoming topic".
