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Mazepin says his willingness to race as a neutral was ‘completely ignored’
Nikita Mazepin says he is very disappointed to lose his drive at Haas and believes his willingness to compete in Formula 1 as a neutral under the FIA’s conditions was “completely ignored”.
Haas announced on Saturday morning that is has terminated its driver contract with Mazepin and the title partnership with Uralkali with immediate effect due to their ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
While Haas has made its own decisions on the associations, the FIA had previously decided to allow Russian and Belarusian drivers to compete under an 'FIA flag' and with no visible links to Russia, as long as they signed a commitment agreeing to certain terms. Mazepin says he was willing to sign the commitment in order to keep racing in F1, but Haas was not open to protecting his drive.
“Dear fans and followers, I am very disappointed to hear that my F1 contract has been terminated,” Mazepin wrote. “While I understand the difficulties, the ruling from FIA plus my ongoing willingness to accept the conditions proposed in order to continue were completely ignored and no process was followed in this unilateral step.
“To those who have tried to understand, my eternal thanks. I have treasured my time in F1 and genuinely hope we can all be together again in better times. I will have more to say in the coming days.”
Haas has yet to announce any replacements for either Mazepin or Uralkali, with a decision on its driver line-up expected to be made at the start of next week ahead of the final pre-season test in Bahrain.
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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