Sky Sports commentator David Crofted reacted to
Max Verstappen's jibe at British media made during the post-race press conference in Sao Paulo.
Max Verstappen made it clear earlier in the 2024 season that he felt like British media was biased towards their drivers and teams.
The Dutchman could feel it, especially after some tense moments in the battle against his British Championship rival
Lando Norris, with whom he had some controversial moments in
Austria,
United States (Austin), and
Brazil.
While Verstappen was never complaining, he explained that when most of the media coverage comes through British channels with British commentators and former F1 drivers, he thinks they are naturally going to favor their national drivers subconsciously.
Following the
Mexico City Grand Prix, the triple World Champion faced a huge wave of criticism from multiple former F1 drivers, but those that were heard perhaps the most were
Sky Sports's Martin Brundle and Damon Hill.
Consequently, when Verstappen came with an answer to all the criticism with his
astonishing performance in the following race in Brazil and the British media
didn't attend the press conference afterward, the
Red Bull Racing F1 driver couldn't help but poke at them, saying:
"I have a quick question here. I mean, I appreciate all of you being here, but I don't see any British press. They have to run to the airport? Or they don't know where the press conference is?"
F1 photographer who attended the post-race press conference, Jamey Price, wrote on X (Twitter) that while there was no British media at the conference, he couldn't see any Dutch media either. In fact, he could count only six journalists (from France and Brazil) in total.
Nevertheless, Max Verstappen's comment gained a lot of traction on social media which resulted in an increased hate towards the British media - namely Sky Sports.
Sky Sports commentator David Croft reacted to the message from Jamie Price on X, as he tried to explain the
reason why he didn't attend the post-race press conference at the
Interlagos circuit.
"Sometimes there's more to a story than just a sound bite or a chance to attack people for perception of British bias. For my part, as it's a press conference for written media only, I never attend the post-race conference, no matter who's won."
"Thursday press conferences are different, they are for broadcast and written media together. Just to help people understand."
"And the quotes from this are freely available to all media, hence other journalists might be off gathering other stories at the time, in the knowledge that they won't miss anything said at the FIA post-race presser."
