Formula 1: Rich Energy release another statement, call Haas liars

Rich Energy have released another statement and referred to the people within the Haas Formula 1 team as liars amid their title sponsorship debacle.

The Rich Energy-Haas Formula 1 title sponsorship situation has taken yet another turn — only for about the dozenth time over the last few days.

In case you have not been following along with this situation, the British beverage company, which signed a title sponsorship agreement with Formula 1’s lone American team ahead of the 2019 season, posted on Twitter this past Wednesday that they had terminated this title sponsorship agreement over Haas’ “poor performance” and the “PC attitude” and “politics” of Formula 1.

Here is this tweet.

But Haas team principal Guenther Steiner went on to claim that Rich Energy were still the team’s title sponsor, a sentiment that they continue to claim to this day and echoed in today’s British Grand Prix, a race during which their two cars still ran Rich Energy branding, as they said they would.

Here is Steiner’s original statement.

Meanwhile, after originally claiming that this tweet came from a “rogue individual”, after reports surfaced that Rich Energy were trying to salvage their relationship with Haas following such an unprofessional tweet and after Rich Energy CEO William Storey called the shareholders’ ensuing statement about salvaging this relationship “ludicrous” and “risible”, Rich Energy have spent the last few days trying to throw Haas under the bus.

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Storey called the team a “milkfloat” at the back of the grid and effectively confirmed the severance of ties, despite the fact that there had not actually been a severance of ties.

A report then emerged that Whyte Bikes, which have been in a legal dispute with Rich Energy over the use of Rich Energy’s stag logo, are prepared to explore potential options against Rich Energy, including possibly submitting applications to wind up the company along with their logo designer, Staxoweb, as well as petitioning for the bankruptcy of Storey.

This is the case because Whyte Bikes won their action against these three defendants back in May, and a court order issued at a later date confirmed that they needed to pay Whyte Bikes a total of £35,416 by Thursday, July 11.

They did not pay.

Then, effectively making it look like they are trying to get Haas to remove their brand from their two cars so that they can sue them for breaching the title sponsorship agreement since this agreement had not, in fact, been terminated and they had not paid Whyte Bikes, Rich Energy tried to embarrass Haas for running their branding in the British Grand Prix in another pathetic tweet.

After Haas teammates Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen collided on the opening lap of this 52-lap race around the 18-turn, 3.661-mile (5.892-kilometer) Silverstone Circuit road course in Silverstone in part Northamptonshire and part Buckinghamshire in England, United Kingdom and were both forced to retire, marking the team’s first double retirement since last year’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Rich Energy took an even more pathetic swipe at the team.

That brings us up to the present. A few hours later and after the race ended, Rich Energy revealed another email sent to them on behalf of Haas concerning this ongoing title sponsorship debacle.

They revealed this message in the form of yet another tweet.

As you can see in this tweet, Rich Energy have called out the members of the Haas team for being liars, but if you actually read the message, Haas are effectively vindicated while pretty much everything that Rich Energy have stated has actually been proven false.

The title sponsorship agreement is still, in fact, intact, despite Rich Energy’s pathetic claims, as made clear by this email, and Rich Energy will owe Haas £35,000,000 if they do choose to terminate it.

Let’s not forget the fact that they couldn’t even pay Whyte Bikes £35,416.

Let’s also not forget how shady this deal was from the start. Rich Energy, a company that few people had ever even heard of, came out of nowhere to serve as the title sponsor of a team at motorsport’s highest level in Formula 1, something that only world-renowned brands typically do.

From a financial standpoint, this never made any sense whatsoever.

But now the whole situation is starting to make a ton of sense, and it’s not a good thing for Rich Energy. How will it all unfold?