Source : ABC NEWS
Australian Formula 1 driver Jack Doohan has made a plea for the online abuse of his family to stop, following the circulation of an image from a parody account falsely portraying his father.
Doohan was dumped from his seat at the French F1 team Alpine for last weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, making way for Argentine driver Franco Colapinto.
Colapinto, who competed in nine grands prix for Williams last season, crashed during one of the practice sessions at the famous Imola circuit.
A parody social media account named formulafakers then posted a doctored image that appeared to show Doohan’s father, Mick, making light of Colapinto’s crash.
The image was made to look like a screenshot from Mick’s account, with a photograph of Colapinto’s wrecked car captioned, “very impressive”.
Jack Doohan’s statement following online abuse directed at his family. (Instagram: jackdoohan)
That fake post circulated online, leading to Jack Doohan calling for an end to what he described as the “online abuse of my family”.
“As you can clearly see, the story circulating above is completely false,” Doohan wrote on social media.
“They edited the original content to make it appear as though my father posted it, which is entirely untrue.
“Please stop harassing my family. I didn’t think it would have to get to this point.”
Doohan initially said it was “Argentine fans” who had created the false image, but later corrected himself.
“However, multiple Argentine outlets falsely reported the fabricated image, which triggered the online abuse of my family.”
The parody account formulafakers released a statement on their social media pages apologising to the Doohan family for the heartache caused.
“Posting that screenshot was a mistake,” the statement read.
“The Doohan family does not deserve to be attacked in the way they evidently were for our fake news post.
“We did not expect this post to cause any damage.
“We deeply, sincerely apologise to the Doohan family. This has been a wake-up call on the real, tangible effects of social media.”
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Doohan is currently a reserve driver for Alpine as the team struggles for good results through seven rounds of the 2025 season.
His best result this season was 13th in China.
Colapinto was 16th in Sunday’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, while teammate Pierre Gasly was 13th.
Alpine is ninth out of 10 teams in the constructors’ championship standings with just seven points, all scored by Gasly.
