Siemens Responds To Mongolian Government’s Letter About Verstappen Slur
Last month, Max Verstappen sparked controversy by calling Lance Stroll a “mongol” after they crashed in Free Practice Two (FP2) at the Portuguese Grand Prix.
In addition to being lambasted on social media for using the ableist slur, Verstappen drew criticism from a Mongolian advocacy group and the Mongolian government, both of which urged him to publicly apologise.
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However, over one month on, Max Verstappen is still yet to issue an explicit apology to the people of Mongolia.
And, earlier this month, Lundeg Purevsuren, Mongolia’s ambassador to the UN and the World Trade Organization (WTO), sent a letter to Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz to voice his criticism of Verstappen’s use of the slur and his unwillingness to apologise.
Ambassador Purevsuren also sent a separate letter to a raft of sponsors and technical partners of the Red Bull F1 team to make them aware of the situation.
Formula1News.co.uk has learned that Siemens, one of Red Bull’s key technical partners, have now replied to the Mongolian government.
In their letter, which this publication has read in its entirety, Siemens said they “do not accept discrimination, harassment or any personal attacks towards individual or groups” and revealed that they had already “clearly” expressed their concerns to Red Bull over the incident.
“The team has assured us that the necessary steps have been taken to prevent a similar incident to happen again. Mr Verstappen has publicly offered his apologies for his behaviour,” Torsten Ende, head of government affairs at Siemens, wrote in his letter to Ambassador Purevsuren.
However, Unro Janchiv, Mongolia’s cultural envoy, told Formula1News.co.uk managing editor Suliman Mulhem on Wednesday that, as far as they are concerned, Verstappen is yet to publicly apologise.
“The claim that Max Verstappen apologised publicly is not accurate and the Mongolian government is waiting to hear from his team to date,” Janchiv told this publication, revealing that Red Bull have not even replied to the Mongolian government’s letters.
“He didn’t publicly apologise to our government nor reply to the ambassador’s open call,” Janchiv added.
Concluding, she said the Mongolian government will continue to “work on this issue until it is resolved.”
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