Red Bull Junior Driver Suspended for Using Racial Slur on Twitch Stream
Juri Vips serves as Red Bull and AlphaTauri F1 reserve driver and races full time in the F2 series.
Red Bull Racing junior driver Juri Vips has been suspended from all team duties after a video of him using a racial slur in a video game stream surfaced Tuesday. The Estonian has served as a Red Bull and AlphaTauri Formula 1 reserve driver since 2020 and most recently drove the Red Bull F1 car during the Spanish Grand Prix Friday practice earlier this year.
"Red Bull Racing has suspended junior driver Juri Vips from all team duties with immediate effect, pending a full investigation into the incident," Red Bull announced Tuesday. “As an organisation we condemn abuse of any kind and have a zero-tolerance policy to racist language or behaviour within our organisation.”
The video, which surfaced on Twitter, shows Vips playing an RPG shooter game with other people when he suddenly refers to one of the other players as the N-word.
Following the announcement of Red Bull's suspension, Vips took to his Instagram account to issue a statement.
"I want to unreservedly apologize for the offensive language used during a live gaming stream earlier today," said Vips on social media. "This language is entirely unacceptable and does not portray the values and principles that I hold. I deeply regret my actions and this is not the example I wish to set. I will cooperate with the investigation fully."
Besides his commitments to Red Bull, the 21-year-old is a full-time racing driver in the F2 series with the British Hitech Grand Prix team, where he currently seats seventh in the championship. Team boss and founder Oliver Oakes told Autosport he was “shocked and appalled to hear about this incident,” though he didn't elaborate if Vips would fulfill his driver duties for the team at Silverstone next weekend.
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