A pair of Australian social media stars have apologised after they posted a video of Formula 1 driver George Russell at a urinal on Instagram and TikTok.
The video was filmed and uploaded during this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, which was won by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
Twin brothers Archie and Miles Shepherd, aka the Shepmates, are well-known for their lip-synching commentary videos.
A now deleted TikTok on their page was captioned: ‘POV: When you meet George Russell at the urinals.’
In the video, one of the brothers says: ‘I just took a p*** next to George Russell. I know what you’re thinking, how big is it?
‘That stays between me and George. There’s confidentiality in the men’s urinal.
‘What I can say is he looks really relaxed, confident stream. We were there for a while so he’s obviously really hydrated and prepared for the race. He really opened the floodgates.’
The video was widely and heavily panned and has now been deleted with the duo subsequently apologising via a statement on their Instagram story.
It read: ‘Our aim is to celebrate sporting heroes and commentators whilst bringing some light hearted fun to sports fans.
‘On this occasion our content has unintentionally offended our audience and sporting fan from around the globe and is unacceptable.
‘We acknowledge our absolute lapse of judgement and apologise wholeheartedly. We have reached out to George personally to apologise.’
Russell and his Mercedes team are yet to publicly comment on the video.
The British driver has had more pressing matters to attend to this weekend, after his race ended in shocking fashion, with the 26-year-old crashing out on the last lap of the grand prix.
While chasing Fernando Alonso for sixth-place, he was caught out by the Aston Martin’s ‘dangerous’ braking which resulted in him skidding off the track and into the barriers, with his car bouncing back onto the road and laying on its side.
The incident left Russell is distress as he screamed down the radio to get the race stopped, but otherwise he was unhurt.
Alonso was later haded a 20-second penalty for causing the crash, with the 42-year-old dropping from sixth to eighth as a result.
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