Max Verstappen declared: "I won't be here when I'm 40," as he made it clear he loathes the amount of publicity he gets due to his standing in Formula 1.
The Dutchman cut an irritable figure in the press conference ahead of this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. As expected, he faced a barrage of questions related to his refusal of team orders last weekend in Brazil.
On the final lap of that race at Interlagos, he was asked by Red Bull to allow Sergio Perez to overtake for more points in his battle for second place in the championship. The Dutchman refused, and made it clear he had already given advance warning that he would not be ceding track position.
Verstappen was criticised for that move, and some people on social media took it too far. A torrent of abuse was directed not only at him but also members of his family, as the 25-year-old revealed the extent of the "disgusting" attacks he and his family have received.
"They started attacking my family – they were threatening my sister and my mum, my girlfriend, my dad and for me that goes way too far," said the Red Bull racer. "If you have a problem with me, that's fine, but don't go after my family because that is just unacceptable."
He went on to call out reporters for their own criticism despite, as Verstappen believes, "not knowing the full facts". He was asked on more than one occasion in that press conference to provide the media with the full facts to avoid that happening, but he insisted: "I'm not going to go into detail what [his reasoning] was, because that will stay between myself and the team.
"It is just incredibly disappointing that while you're not knowing the full facts, that people write so many bad things straight away. I don't know why that is but at the end of the day, you contribute to all the problems social media has by writing these kind of things.
"I mean, you don't know the real story so you don't need to write the story. But I'm just a bit fed up with all this bulls**t, just going around all the time. As soon as something negative that needs to be highlighted, and it's pretty sickening, to be honest, being part of all that. While at the end of the day, I haven't even done anything wrong. It's just people misunderstood what was actually going on."
To round off the press conference, Verstappen was asked if the constant media attention and the abuse on social media make him consider leaving F1. He replied: "It's not only related to that, to be honest, but I won't be here when I'm 40 – that's for sure."
