Formula 1: Rich Energy release their most pathetic statement yet

Rich Energy’s title sponsorship debacle with the Haas Formula 1 team took a new turn when the company released their most pathetic statement yet.

It just gets better and better.

Or worse and worse.

That simply depends on how you define the two words.

Rich Energy have been in the spotlight over the course of the last week after announcing on Twitter that they had terminated their title sponsorship agreement with the Haas Formula 1 team over the team’s “poor performance” and because of the “PC attitude” and “politics” of Formula 1 in general.

The British beverage company and the sport’s lone American team reached a title sponsorship agreement for the 2019 season last year, but only nine races into the 21-race season, the former tweeted this.

As bizarre as this tweet is, the situation has only gotten more and more bizarre with every ensuing development.

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner released a statement that Rich Energy were still the team’s title sponsor, and he later confirmed that they would still run Rich Energy branding in this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Here is Steiner’s initial statement.

Reports then emerged that Rich Energy’s investors were working to salvage their title sponsorship deal with Haas and that the company’s tweet came from a “rogue individual” who they were supposedly in the process of  “legally removing from all executive responsibilities”.

Rich Energy CEO William Storey called the team’s ensuing statement about salvaging this relationship “ludicrous” and “risible” and blamed an attempted “palace coup” against him.

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Then another report emerged that Storey had, in fact, confirmed the company’s severance of ties with Haas, and he referred to the team as a “milkfloat” at the back of the grid.

Rich Energy then tweeted an email of what they called “the actual situation”, but all this did was add to the confusion of the already confusing debacle.

Finally, Whyte Bikes, which have been in a legal dispute with Rich Energy over Rich Energy’s use of the stag logo that Whyte Bikes used first, announced that they are prepared to explore their options, among which is the option of submitting applications to wind up Rich Energy and Staxoweb, Rich Energy’s logo designer, in addition to petitioning for the bankruptcy of Storey.

Why?

Whyte Bikes won their action against these three defendants back in May, and an ensuing court order confirmed that they needed to pay £35,416 to Whyte Bikes by Thursday, July 11, just one day after they tweeted about leaving Haas supposedly over “poor performance” — 10 days after the most recent race and the “poor performance” that they singled out, mind you.

Did they pay?

No.

Heading into today’s qualifying session for Sunday’s Formula 1 race, the British Grand Prix, at Silverstone Circuit, the two Haas cars, as Steiner said they would, carried Rich Energy branding despite the mess of this past week.

Rich Energy took notice and released their most pathetic statement yet.

Let me guess — the “rogue individual” is back?

As you can see in the comments section if you click on the tweet itself, this tweet, coupled with all of the other nonsense that has come from the company’s account over the course of the last week, has led many fans to suspect that this is only a parody account, and justifiably so.

However, this account has been associated with promoting the Haas team long before just this week, and the account history shows that it is, in fact Rich Energy’s account, as it has long promoted their energy drink as well, even well before they joined Formula 1 as Haas’ title sponsor.

Further speculation has led some to assume that this whole thing is a prank given the pettiness of this latest message and pretty much every other message about the matter, but actual reported statements (not tweets) by those within Haas and Rich Energy would seem to suggest otherwise.

But, once again, who knows? What we are dealing with is something that is simply unprecedented, not only in Formula 1 but in all motorsports and all of sports in general. Despite the so-called “answers” we have gotten, we still have no true answers, and this pathetic statement further illustrates that.