Why Ted Kravitz's revelation about George Russell's attack on Max Verstappen has ignited the 'media manipulation' debate

Ted Kravitz's revelation that George Russell's attack on Max Verstappen during the F1 Abu Dhabi GP race weekend was premeditated has kicked off a storm and raised some serious questions. The Sky Sports reporter has pulled back the curtain on what happened last season after the Dutch driver had some choice words about the Brit after the Qatar GP.

In what was the second-to-last race of the year in Qatar, George Russell and Max Verstappen were involved in an incident during qualifying that led to the Dutch driver losing his pole position. The Red Bull driver was not impressed with the Brit's demeanor in front of the stewards and had a few choice words after the race.

This led to George Russell lashing out at Max Verstappen ahead of the F1 Abu Dhabi GP, where the Mercedes driver termed the Red Bull driver a bully. In his book, Ted Kravitz has revealed that the attack from the Brit against the Dutch driver was premeditated, and Russell had come up to the Sky reporter to ask him a follow-up.

While this has led to George Russell facing a lot of backlash for a premeditated attack against Max Verstappen, it has also pulled back the curtain on the reality of media manipulation that F1 drivers or personnel can do at certain points.

Should Ted Kravitz have revealed the details of what happened?

The answer to this question goes both ways. Ted Kravitz has, in essence, used what happened between him and the Mercedes as gossip fodder to sell his new book. At the same time, he can be rest assured that George Russell is not going to look at him as a confidant anytime soon.

Then comes the question of ethics because we have no idea if Russell had told this to Kravitz in confidence, because if he had, then Ted comes off looking quite unprofessional. At the same time, if there was no confidentiality involved, then this seems perfectly fine, and he has every right to come out and spill the beans.

This is sloppy from George Russell

From George Russell's side, it's safe to say that this has been a sloppy way of going about something like this. If he is going to do something as blatant as this, it is always better that either he does this with a confidant in the media whom he knows he can trust, or he's not doing something like this so nakedly.

It is safe to say that even if George Russell thought that Ted Kravitz was a confidant, that belief has now been shot to pieces. F1 drivers having their favorite media personnel is not new. But it seems Russell went about it in a very clumsy way that makes him look worse than should ideally have been the case.

The conversation about 'media manipulation'

Now, let's get to the reality of the sport because the cobwebs woven around F1 media are not something that everyone can navigate through. What this incident has quite significantly brought to light is the uncomfortable conversation around media manipulation.

What an average F1 fan might not be aware of is that a lot of prominent drivers have often used specific media as their mouthpieces. Max Verstappen will have a few Dutch outlets through which he can voice his opinion and use them to create a narrative.

The same goes for Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Toto Wolff, Helmut Marko, Christian Horner, and others. The prominent personalities of the sport trade access with visibility on specific platforms to set narratives.

Is it ethical or unethical? It's a question I leave to the fans, but what I would suggest is always take every report from every media outlet with caution. Not everything that's published is accurate, and sometimes the sport does fall victim to its prominent personalities trying to set a narrative.

In essence, George Russell did nothing wrong with how he approached the entire situation, except for having Ted Kravitz in confidence that such a thing would not come out in public, a lesson that he would have learned by now.