Max Verstappen Loses 2000 Followers Just Weeks After Leveling Ayrton Senna’s Record

Max Verstappen comfortably won the 2023 Australian Grand Prix despite losing the lead to Mercedes in the opening laps. He was overtaken by George Russell in Turn 1 and soon Lewis Hamilton pushed the Dutchman to third on the grid.

However, the defending world champion managed to claw back his position after the restart. Russell suffered an engine failure while Hamilton wasn’t able to fend off Verstappen, who overtook him with ease.

The Red Bull driver won his 37th F1 race win, extending his lead in the driver’s championship by 15 points. With the win in Melbourne, he matched the late Ayrton Senna’s tally of 80 career podiums.

 

Yet, the Dutchman hasn’t managed to repeat the same feat on the internet. Just weeks following his win, his social media followers’ number plummeted by 2000, leaving Hamilton’s fans laughing at the FIA.

Max Verstappen loses followers while Lewis Hamilton gains

Max Verstappen is still the 3rd most followed F1 driver on Instagram after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. The Dutchman has 9.7 Million followers compared to Hamilton and Leclerc’s total of 32.4 Million and 10.2 Million respectively.

He has the 3rd highest follower count on Twitter too, trailing only Fernando Alonso and Hamilton. Yet, the Red Bull driver has lost some followers in the 4-week break following the Australian GP.

A Twitter user named ‘Marina’ has pointed out that the Dutchman is one of only two drivers to lose fans during the last week. The other driver on the list is Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas.

On the contrary, 7-time champion Lewis Hamilton gained 60,000 followers. Leclerc and Alonso too added 28,000 and 14,500 fans in the same duration. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez added more than 4 times the followers the Dutchman lost in the break.

While the loss of followers is a minor dent in the 2x champions’ overall count, fans claim it defeats FIA and F1’s narrative. In recent posts, social media posts by F1 Hamilton have been sidelined over the Dutchman. However, fans still favour the Briton and the drop in followers is a jab at the F1’s agenda of promoting the Red Bull driver.

Fans are furious as Lewis Hamilton is left out of F1’s post

Max Verstappen is the future of F1. The Dutchman has accomplished 2 world championship wins and broken numerous records at the age of 25. If he continues to repeat his form throughout his Red Bull contract, he could break Michael Schumacher’s record of 7 championship wins.

However, Verstappen’s rise has come at the cost of Lewis Hamilton’s fall. Hamilton struggled in 2022 after failing to secure a single-race win for the first time in his career. He has also had a bumpy start to the 2023 season.

The Briton is 38 years old and thus, his teammate George Russell has been poised as the future of Mercedes. This has been seen in F1’s omitting Hamilton from a post celebrating a major record.

F1 celebrated a landmark achievement after every team achieved a point within the first 3 races of the season for the first time in its history. They included images of all leading scorers from every team except Mercedes. Instead of featuring Hamilton, who is the leading scorer for Mercedes, Russell was added to the post. This angered his fans, who claim F1 want to write off the Briton.

The recent numbers are enough to prove that the 7x champion still has a vocal and passionate fanbase backing him. Despite the FIA wanting to exclude the star driver, he still prevails on social media with his presence.