Formula 1: Nikita Mazepin could face ‘serious consequences’
By Asher Fair
FIA president Jean Todt warned that Haas Formula 1 driver Nikita Mazepin will face “serious consequences” should he make another controversial mistake.
Rookies generating tons of hype is nothing new in sports, including motor racing. But Haas Formula 1 rookie Nikita Mazepin has been in the headlines over the offseason for all the wrong reasons as he prepares to make his series debut later this month.
The 22-year-old Russian, whose billionaire father Dmitry serves as the majority shareholder and chair of Uralkali and is funding his son’s racing career, put himself in the spotlight with a video which was posted to his Instagram story back in December.
The video featured him sitting in the passenger seat of a car. He turned around to the back seat before reaching for a woman’s shirt and grabbing her breasts, leading her to try to push him away before giving him the middle.
Mazepin faced tons of criticism and personal attacks following his inappropriate behavior.
But he ultimately kept his drive with Formula 1’s lone American team and didn’t face any kind of major consequences, despite the team calling it an “abhorrent” act and reviewing the situation internally.
Despite deleting the apology he posted to Twitter after the video went viral, he has vowed to learn from the incident, even though he still insists he didn’t post the video.
Nikita Mazepin says he didn't post the video. light. Hot
However, if he ultimately doesn’t learn from it, there are more eyes on him now than there have ever been in the past, and those eyes include those of FIA president Jean Todt.
Todt has vowed “serious consequences” for Mazepin should he make a huge mistake like that again. Here is what he had to say about the matter, according to F1i.
"“To be very straightforward, I’m not happy about the situation. He has had a warning that if it will happen again, serious consequences will happen. Saying that, it’s something which happened in his private life. And unfortunately, he did not pay enough attention. So I simply hope that he will learn out of this lesson.”"
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Mazepin hasn’t yet demonstrated the ability to learn from any of his past transgressions, of which there are many, so it remains to be seen how he will perform at the sport’s highest level — both on and off the track.
His checkered history includes but is not limited to a speeding ticket, bribing a girl for nudes with paddock passes, complaining to her when she didn’t comply, endorsing multiple racist comments about fellow driver Yuki Tsunoda, publicly joking about the coronavirus pandemic and punching Callum Ilott in the face.
Mazepin is set to make his Formula 1 debut at Bahrain International Circuit in the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, March 28.
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The 2021 season was initially scheduled to get underway at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit with the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, March 21, but pandemic-related restrictions caused that race to be postponed to Sunday, November 21 instead. Preseason testing is scheduled to be held at Bahrain International Circuit from Friday, March 12 to Sunday, March 14. It was initially scheduled to take place at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last week.