Red Bull confirms exit of employee behind racist texts

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Red Bull Racing has confirmed that an unnamed employee linked to racist text messages is no longer working with the team.

The extensive messaging exchanges using racist language were posted on social media earlier this week, prompting a rapid response from the team management.

"As publicly acknowledged last week we condemn racist abuse of any kind and have a zero-tolerance policy to racist behaviour within our organisation." a Red Bull spokesperson said.

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"The person in question is no longer an employee of Red Bull Racing," the official statement added, which also confirmed that the individual in question was not a high-profile member of the trackside team

"We will not be commenting further at this stage," it concluded.

The images of text messages showed various posts with offensive language, which were sent across a period of time over a number of different dates earlier this year.

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton was the target of online racial abuse after the British Grand Prix after his first lap clash with Max Verstappen which put the Red Bull driver out of the race.

At the time, Red Bull made it clear that it opposed any such attacks.

“While we may be fierce rivals on-track, we are all united against racism,” the team said. "We condemn any form of racist abuse towards our team, our competitors and our fans."

“As a team we are disgusted and saddened to witness the racist abuse Lewis endured on social media after the collision with Max. There is never any excuse for it, there is certainly no place for it in our sport and those responsible should be held accountable.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner made it clear that "we have a zero tolerance approach to racist behaviour within our team.

"I personally feel strongly that those responsible for this sort of abuse should be held to account," he said, adding that "highly charged emotions should never cross the line into racist abuse.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.