Red Bull racing suspends driver for racist abuse

Red Bull Racing has suspended Juri Vips, a member of its junior driver development programme, due to a racial slur he allegedly made while live streaming a video game.

Vips is a Formula 2 race winner, who was recently given the opportunity to drive a Red Bull Formula 1 car in free practice in Barcelona earlier this season. However, he may have stalled his career due to the current scandal. The team is committed to conducting a full investigation into the incident.

Vips had been on a live streaming session on popular platform Twitch with another Red Bull junior driver, Liam Lawson, along with other friends. The players had been engrossed in a game of "Call of Duty" when the incident occurred.

The moment was captured and has since made the rounds in social media. Vips apparently used a racial slur, to which Lawson simply replied by calling his name, "Juri."

The news reached Red Bull quickly, and the team issued a statement on their own social media accounts just hours later.

"Red Bull Racing has suspended junior driver Juri Vips from all team duties with immediate effect, pending a full investigation into the incident," read the statement.

"As an organisation, we condemn abuse of any kind and have a zero-tolerance policy to racist language or behaviour within our organisation."

Meanwhile, Vips was also quick to act in the face of a scandal. He immediately took to Instagram to issue an apology.

"I wish to unreservedly apologise for the offensive language used during a live gaming stream earlier today," he said.

"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," he added, before writing his name.

He received a lot of support from his fans, and colleagues. However, people are generally divided about the incident, with many condemning any kind of discriminatory language. Others, however, are lamenting the now prevalent "cancel culture" which will likely ruin his career.