“Let Him Walk With Bubba for Driver Intros” – Freddie Kraft Calls Out “Pansy” F1 Driver George Russell Over Booing Complaints

For a while, the F1 community has been getting hot and bothered about the rapid rise of fans booing rival drivers. Mercedes driver George Russell has been particularly agitated about the whole scenario. He recently spoke about a scene at the Canadian Grand Prix, where a fan booed him for no reason whatsoever. In a recent Door Bumper Clear podcast, spotter Freddie Kraft dismissed his complaints.

According to him, the booing comes with the territory and he has to simply grin and bear it.

He said, “You’re going to go into a bunch of different countries with a bunch of different cultures. Some fans are going to offer you grace and some fans are not. I saw Matthew Dillner, he sent out a tweet this week. He said, ‘if you buy a ticket, you buy the right to boo’. If you’re a professional race car driver at an elite series like F1, I don’t know how you can make it that far if this bothers you. To me, you’re somewhat of a pansy.”

READ MORE: George Russell Voices Utter Disbelief at Disappointing Canadian GP Finish

What else did he say about George Russell?

According to Kraft, it was completely normal to get booed by fans. The likes of Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin are used to getting it all the time, and they have learned to accept it. The 23XI Racing spotter also believes that Russell may have shot himself in the foot with this kind of admission. In other words, if people realize that the booing is getting to him, then the booing will get a whole lot worse. He declared that fans are like little children who are like bullies. If the driver gives any indication that the booing is messing with them it will get worse, so the trick is to ignore it.

He continued, “They [Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin] don’t really have a choice. If this guy wants to race, h*ll, I’ll let him walk with Bubba for driver intros. He can have some real problems, he can walk out with Denny at Martinsville. It took one race at Martinsville and it went from Denny getting cheered to Denny getting booed by his own people.”

Of course, another possible reason behind this is that Russell has moved from a backmarker team to a top team. In essence, people are excited to see slow cars that end up finishing in high positions. Now, Russell is in a top-tier team and the pressure really is on him.

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