Maurizio Arrivabene’s false arrest in Singapore
Ferrari was keen to make it clear that its director, Maurizio Arrivabene, had not been taken into custody during the Singapore weekend, contrary to rumours circulated by the Spanish media.
Once again, false information has circulated around the small world of F1 at the beginning of this week, namely the several hours of custody that Maurizio Arrivabene, the director of Ferrari, was supposed to undergo.
The information from Spanish media outlets Marca and ABC, relayed by numerous newspapers such as The Telegraph and F1i, claimed that the Italian leader had been arrested by local police for throwing a cigarette butt on the ground. The microstate is very strict about environmental protection and imposes hefty fines on offenders. Maurizio Arrivabene was reportedly questioned by local authorities for six hours before having to pay a fine of 1,000 Singapore dollars.
Nevertheless, when the local newspaper Channel News Asia contacted the authority responsible for issuing such fines, it indicated that there were no proceedings against the former marketing manager of Marlboro and that no custody had taken place. Ferrari then forwarded the link to the article to its entire media database in order to spread the word.
This led some sites like The Telegraph to remove the article in question. But others didn’t bother and thus left false information on their site… Two weeks after the controversy surrounding statements Pierre Gasly supposedly made regarding an immediate replacement of Daniil Kvyat, some things never change…
With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr
