David Croft under fire for multiple Max Verstappen comments over sim racing

Sky F1 commentator David Croft looks into the camera.

Sky F1 commentator David Croft repeatedly made a point about Max Verstappen’s early morning sim racing after a fiery approach to team radio in Hungary, leading to backlash for Croft.

Verstappen consistently vented his anger over the radio regarding strategy and his collision with Lewis Hamilton at the Hungarian Grand Prix, his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase baring the brunt of that as things got tense between driver and race engineer once again.

David Croft links irritated Max Verstappen to sim racing activity

Not for the first time, Verstappen was mixing his real-life racing activities with the virtual world, taking part in the 24 Hours of Spa event, which saw Verstappen up at 3am competing before the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Sky F1 lead commentator Croft made sure to point this out, more than once, when Verstappen was unleashing on Lambiase over the radio.

“I don’t want to sound too critical, but Max Verstappen is sounding like a man who stayed up late last night doing a sim race, which he did, and then got up early this morning to do a sim race, which he did, rather than getting a good night’s sleep in Budapest, which by the sounds of it, he could probably have done with,” said Croft during the race.

Croft repeatedly linking Verstappen’s grumpy nature to his sim racing activities led to a flurry of fan criticism aimed at Croft on social media.

“Crofty seriously needs to stop this ‘Max should’ve went to sleep instead of sim racing’ BS,” one fan posted.

“The problem is not Max it’s the car”.

“Crofty shut up about Max doing sim races. It’s 9 times now mate,” another fan posted.

“You know it’s bad when Ted Kravitz is sticking up for Max and saying that he has won a race before whilst doing sim racing the evening before. Had enough of Crofty’s awful commentary,” came another critical comment.

“I’m no Max Verstappen fan but if Crofty mentions Max Verstappen staying up late again playing sim races I might have to mute Sky F1,” another fan posted.

Catch-up on the key headlines from a dramatic Hungarian Grand Prix

Hungarian GP conclusions: McLaren team orders, Piastri rise, Red Bull’s Perez failure

Christian Horner clarifies ‘childish’ Max Verstappen radio exchange after Lewis Hamilton clash

In a more detailed post, one fan claimed that Croft’s commentary was borderlining “distasteful” and risked reputational damage.

“Amongst all the madness around Lewis, Max, McLarens and what not, let’s not forget the disasterclass of a commentary Sky had today,” the fan posted.

“This was not a race where there was zero action.

“This was not a race where jacksh*t was going on that you needed fillers.

“This was certainly not a race where Max was even contending for the win.

“The almost distasteful level of “He sounds like a driver who was sim racing late at night” mentions is a poor look.

“It’s ok if Sky Sports is a British broadcast but this level of targeting and frankly distasteful commentary is just not on and it should be called out.”

Verstappen went on to finish the Hungarian GP P5 after colliding with Hamilton in combat for the final podium spot.

Read next: Lewis Hamilton addresses Max Verstappen ‘hostility’ after latest collision