To Haas, it was immediately obvious what the ramifications would be for his F1 team. Team owner Gene Haas and his F1 team boss Guenther Steiner had been at the circuit together when they saw the first news reports of the invasion, which had begun in the early hours of the morning, at 5 a.m. The team cancelled media sessions for the day as discussions continued behind the scenes. Haas' motorhome at the end of the paddock had become the focal point of the media's attention. It was all about Russia: about the race due to be held there in September and about Haas' link with one of Russia's most influential businessmen.Īs Thursday progressed there remained no word from F1 or Haas about what it would do next - the Russian Grand Prix was not cancelled until Friday. The second day of F1's test at the Barcelona circuit was no longer about the excitement around the early pace of the Ferrari nor which car design had caught the eye of the paddock's tech journalists. By Thursday, he was at the Kremlin meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin and a handful of other Russian business leaders. Yet it was impossible to ignore a clear link between the two events.ĭmitry Mazepin, the man whose company had effectively saved Haas and kept the team in F1 at the start of 2021 by becoming its biggest financial backer, had started the week at the Barcelona circuit watching his son Nikita drive during a promotional filming day for the team. The small building, decked out in the red, blue and white of Uralkali, a major Russian chemical company, was at the end of a paddock hosting an F1 preseason that, by that point, felt irrelevant in the grand scheme of world events. Over 2,500 kilometers away from Ukraine, images of the invasion by Russia were being played on all three of the wall-mounted TVs around the Haas team's motorhome at the Circuit de Catalunya, northeast of Barcelona. This is the story of how those intense early days of the season played out for the team, and how they have since put the pieces together to be challenging at the front of the midfield in the campaign's first two races. As various sports began banning Russian involvement and withdrawing from commercial relationships with Russian companies, Haas were in the paddock at preseason testing for the new F1 season. For Formula One, it cast the relationship of the Haas team with Dmitry Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali in a different light. 24, Russian military began an invasion of Ukraine that caused shock and outrage across the world. Inside Haas: How F1's American team cut ties with Nikita Mazepin and his oligarch father You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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