Rachel Brookes said she received horrific abuse on social media after asking Max Verstappen whether his move on George Russell at the 2025 Spanish GP was deliberate. She has turned off her comments after the backlash, after a question that came from the debate around the penalty and the race incident.
Brookes and Verstappen
Brookes said she asked the question because Nico Rosberg had suggested the clash was deliberate. On the Road to Success podcast, she said, “Nico Rosberg was on our programme that weekend and had implied he thought it was deliberate. This is what our pundits were saying. Nico, as a Formula 1 driver and a world champion, said it looked deliberate.”
She added, “I’m not making a summary myself here, I’m literally relaying what our world champion on the team thinks.” When she put the point to Verstappen, she said: “So I said to Max: 'Was it deliberate?' And his response was: 'Does it matter?' I said to him: 'Well, I think it does.'”
Social media backlash
The abuse followed that exchange, not the race itself. Brookes said she had “so much respect” for Verstappen and had “never had an issue” with him, a point she used to push back on the idea that the question was personal.
She also said, “I mean, last year, for example, at the end of the year, I loved the way people were cheering Max on as the underdog.” She recalled fans saying, “I never thought I’d be cheering for Max Verstappen in a race.”
That makes the reaction harder to square with the question she asked in the media pen. Brookes said, “This is what people get wrong.” She then tied her question to the race context, saying, “In Spain last year, Max had contact with George Russell. They’d had a coming together on the straight, or something Max was upset about. It was a frustrating race for him, and there was contact with George.”
Why the question landed
Brookes pointed to the race before Spain as part of her thinking. “The reason I said that was because in Imola, just before, he had pulled off that incredible move at the start of the race,” she said. “That is what Max does, and what Max can do.”
She finished the point by saying, “So, to me, when he did what he did with George, it took some of the shine off.” The 10-second penalty only sharpened the debate around the move, and Brookes’ comments show how quickly a live race question can turn into an online pile-on when the paddock is already split over intent.
