IndyCar Driver Receives Death Threats for Controversial Incident During an Online Race

Published 05/06/2020, 4:25 PM EDT

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Last Saturday’s IndyCar race became well-known for all the wrong reasons. There were plenty of collisions and incidents during the race, but a couple of them stuck out like sore thumbs. Firstly, an incident between Indy driver Simon Pagenaud and F1 driver Lando Norris.

Fellow Indy driver Graham Rahal took out Pagenaud, but the Frenchman blamed Norris, who was alongside both of them. So, he plotted revenge and took out Norris in a malicious and deliberate attack. Later on, disgraced F2 driver Santino Ferrucci was back to his old ways when he side-swiped the second of three McLarens, Oliver Askew.

Needless to say, nobody appreciated those stunt, especially since they were deliberate. Many even heard Pagenaud plot to take out race leader Norris, live on the stream. He tried to maintain his innocence, but he was caught red-handed.

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What happened in the IndyCar race?

Pagenaud behaved in a particularly unsportsmanlike manner, as he was running on red-blooded rage. He sustained some damage at the start of the race, courtesy Lando Norris. As mentioned earlier, he initially claimed that he never intended to let Norris fly off the track, but his live stream proved incriminating. Obviously, Norris later called Pagenaud out on social media

Meanwhile, Ferrucci displayed unsportsmanlike conduct in the same race. He tried to justify his actions when he declared that it was ‘just a videogame’. However, he ended up sullying online gaming’s reputation and added another black stain on his reputation.

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A couple of years ago, he was found guilty of driving his race car in the pitlane while holing his cellphone. However, the last straw was when he racially taunted his teammate, Arjun Maini and deliberately crashed into him in the slowing down lap. Since then, IndyCar handed him a lifeline and he has raced there to this day

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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