"Gareth stick to golf": Former Real Madrid star roasted by fans for his comments on the 2021 F1 Abu Dhabi GP

F1 fans have not taken kindly to former Real Madrid star Gareth Bale's comments about the controversial season finale between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen at the Abu Dhabi GP in 2021.

The race garnered plenty of controversy after Verstappen won his maiden F1 World Drivers' Championship, preventing Hamilton from winning a record eighth title.

Bale recently stated that he had stopped watching the sport post the season finale in 2021, saying:

"You know, I don't after what happened to Hamilton a few years ago. It wasn't fair. The fact [Hamilton] had to go through all the traffic and he couldn't pit stop... It was never a race."

F1 fans, however, were critical of the former Champions League winner's comments. One fan claimed that the Welsh superstar should stick to golf.

"He couldn’t pit" Mercedes literally told him to stay out Gareth stick to golf," they tweeted.

Here are some more fan reactions:

Lewis Hamilton on not winning an F1 race in 18 months

Lewis Hamilton does not feel the 'weight' of not winning an F1 race in the last 18 months.

In his pre-race press conference, Hamilton said:

"Yeah, I don't feel any weight. We've gone through a tough patch and we're kind of, like, on that up. And I feel that there's been a feeling of like… For example, in the last race and some of the races, it feels like we've had wins. It's just about perspective. Of course, we've not been in first place but there have been many wins in the steps that we've taken. Last race, for us, as a team, to be on the podium with both drivers, that was a win for us. And so we're just focused."

The Mercedes driver also credited his engineering team, adding:

"We know, as I was just saying earlier, that we have that north star. We know where we need to go. We don't know everything about how to get there but we know that together we can get there if we just keep our heads down and focus on the science. The engineering team is fantastic within the organization. We've got a great development team and I honestly think we've got the best development rate, as good if not better than any team in the sport and so you’ve just got to keep chipping away."

Hamilton will be hoping to put in a good performance at the Canadian GP this weekend.