Rachel Brookes is looking it quits from Sky Sports activities.
The longtime F1 reporter is leaving Sky simply days earlier than the Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg after spending 14 years with the community, she wrote on X on Wednesday.
Commercial
Whereas the precise cause for her departure is unclear, it comes simply days after she revealed she confronted “horrific abuse” on-line following an interview with racer Max Verstappen final 12 months.
Brookes talked to Verstappen after he collided with Mercedes star George Russell on the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix. Verstappen was given a 10-second penalty for the collision and admitted he “made a mistake.”
Rachel Brookes throughout qualifying forward of the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Circuit on March 23, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. Getty Photos
The reporter proceeded to ask Verstappen if he made contact with Russell on function after a broadcaster thought it could have been deliberate, however the racer dodged the query and requested if it actually mattered.
Brookes instructed the “Highway to Success” podcast that folks within the broadcasting business despatched her messages praising her for asking the query as a result of many others could be too scared to ask it.
Commercial
However followers had the alternative response to Brookes’ query.
“However then the followers, the social media facet of it, was horrendous,” Brookes mentioned. “I received folks telling me I ought to by no means have the ability to have youngsters as a result of I am a foul instance. I received probably the most horrific stuff you can think about.”
Lando Norris of Nice Britain and McLaren is interviewed within the Pitlane through the Dash forward of the F1 Grand Prix of Canada at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on Might 23, 2026 in Montreal, Quebec. Components 1 by way of Getty Photos
“And that is from a number of these profiles with dads with children with daughters and issues like that, the place you simply take a look at it and suppose: ‘Take a step again. It is a Components 1 race. It is a sport.'”
Brookes joined Sky in 2009 earlier than her position in F1 media expanded when Sky acquired broadcast rights for the UK in 2012.
Commercial
She turned well-known for interviewing drivers within the media pen and touring to numerous Grand Prix occasions.
Brookes is leaving Sky however staying within the realm of F1 and will probably be current at subsequent week’s British Grand Prix.
“After a few years at Sky I’m shifting on to thrilling new ventures and searching ahead to what comes subsequent,” she wrote on X.
“I’ve left the Sky F1 group however F1 nonetheless has my coronary heart & so I will nonetheless be concerned in it. I will hold you posted, within the meantime see you at Silverstone!”
