SHOCKING: Red Bull engineer Hannah Schmitz target of horrible online abuse after Dutch GP

In a truly shocking turn of events, Red Bull principal strategy engineer Hannah Schmitz was the target of horrible online abuse after the Dutch GP. Schmitz was pictured smiling during the race when the safety car seemingly worked in Red Bull's favour, which sparked a torrent of abuse against her.

During the race, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had made their first and only pitstops. Meanwhile, race leader Max Verstappen was due to make another pitstop and would have had to overtake both Mercedes drivers to win the race.

However, a virtual safety car period was introduced after Yuki Tsunoda's car encountered an issue with the differential. That turned the race on its head as it gave Verstappen the opportunity to make a pitstop and still come out in front of the two Mercedes.

Things exacerbated for Hamilton when Valtteri Bottas' Alfa Romeo stopped on the track, leading to the introduction of the safety car. While Verstappen switched to fresh soft tyres, Hamilton opted to continue with his used medium ones to take the race lead.

That lead proved short-lived for the Mercedes driver because as soon as the safety car period ended, Verstappen zoomed past him on his fresher tyres. While Hamilton was understandably frustrated with the turn of events, what was rather shocking were the online attacks on Red Bull's principal strategy engineer.

Social media was full of conspiracy theories over the timing of the VSC and the involvement of an AlphaTauri in it. Things got out of hand when Schmitz became the target of online abuse. She was targeted by rather frustrated fans in a series of tweets once the race in Zandvoort was over.

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Red Bull engineer receives support from fans on social media

We're not going to inundate the article with hateful content on social media against Schmitz.

There were also tweets from users who came out to defend the Red Bull engineer. Some of them are as follows:

"We will not be entertaining Hannah Schmitz slander on the timeline today. Get a job. Touch grass. Feel the warm embrace of a romantic partner."

"People who have been abused today because Lewis Hamilton didn’t win: Hannah Schmitz, Max Verstappen, George Russell, Yuki Tsunoda. You guys are so out of touch with reality; it’s mad"

"Four people got hate this weekend for absolutely no reason other than doing their job. Sergio Perez, George Russell, Yuki Tsunoda & Hannah Schmitz. Not to mention Max Verstappen, he gets hate on a daily basis for no reason whatsoever. You people are not real fans of the sport."

"As a woman who works in sport, seeing what Hannah Schmitz is doing at Red Bull is so refreshing. Women in the industry should never feel like they have to work harder for praise just for being good at their job. Hannah deserves all the credit for killing Red Bull strategy"

The conspiracy theories and fan behaviour reached a new low this weekend. It started with Sergio Perez being called out for intentionally bringing out the yellow flag and ended with Schmitz being subjected to online abuse.

These incidents reflect poorly on the sport. Once again, the ball is in F1's court to take steps to ensure that such things don't occur again.