Last year Twitter now known as X became a very interesting platform. Not because Musk entered HQ with a badly used sink. No because Heinz-Harald Frentzen the should have been champion of 1999 became active on twitter. Heinz is one of the few people from the Formula One who interact with it’s fans on the platform. Others are Damon Hill, Pedro de la Rosa, Mike Gascoyne and Ian Phillips. Interestingly all of them have a link with the Jordan Grand Prix team. Therefore, it was a shock that Frentzen got banned on Twitter until in March. Unable to respond to others. It was the reason that the #FreeFrentzen community came alive. To make a statement towards Twitter that it was a dumb move to have him blocked. It seems that it worked.
I like to think that our effort to bring #FreeFrentzen on twitter helped to have Heinz back on twitter. I’m not sure if it really did help, what i do know is that many of you joined the movement. How it started I’m not sure. The hashtag was used before I was aware I was writing it down and the three of us kept it going. It was amazing to see how many of you started to tweet it as well. Posting a photo or video or just a random tweet and add #FreeFrentzen to it.
For me personally it was a long time ago I saw the community united. United deep in its core to bring one of their heroes back from twitter prison. Frentzen is one of the few that shares lots of information about his day in the Formula One and his daily life. Something todays drivers don’t do as most of them have a PA or whatever who deal with the socials.
Incredible to see what we managed to do in just a few days, imagine this had happened in the days when Bertrand Gachot was arrested in London? Back then, the drivers on the grid supported Gachot. Having a fan base tweeting the hack out of #FreeGachot back then would even fire it up faster.
This one is for you warriors, for your dedication, your limitless energy and effort to show Twitter they were wrong by putting Heinz in Twitter jail. We got him released, and shown the world Twitter can be beaten! Proud of you all!
Peter Wright
