A few days ago, remarkable news broke: OnlyFans would become the new title sponsor of Alpine’s F1 team. The US platform—a place where interested parties can subscribe to content often featuring adult content—would swap with BWT at the French racing team from next season. Although several international media reported the story, it is a complete hoax.

BWT is now a familiar name in Formula 1. After being the main sponsor of Racing Point for many years, the Austrian water treatment systems company has now been involved in the same role for Alpine. BWT reportedly pays many tens of millions every year to be Alpine’s title sponsor. But not for long, if we are to believe some F1 media lately.

OnlyFans a sponsor of Alpine?

A story appeared recently that OnlyFans would take over BWT’s role. The source? One Matthew J. Thompson, a freelance journalist with a focus on Formula 1. He posted the message first via his verified X account. A small detail: there is no F1 journalist named Matthew J. Thompson. In reality, this is a fake account of an unknown person who, at times, puts F1 rumours out into the world. Despite this, he has 17,000 thousand followers on X, and international media thus blindly adopts his tweets.

GPblog can confirm that there is no Matthew J. Thompson running around in the paddock. In fact, a quick search on Google reveals that no articles by this person can be found online at all. You do then find an article on Reddit, where followers have discovered that some photos posted by ‘Thompson’ on his X-account are fake. Moreover, it has the appearance that Thompson’s profile picture was generated by AI.

A further look at the X-account reveals more red flags: He (or she) is not followed by the F1 teams, posts usually explain how good Fernando Alonso is and sometimes showcase offensive views. Also notable are the many overt expressions of support for Donald Trump. In short, not posts you would expect from an F1 journalist.

This article has been written in collaboration with Matt Gretton

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