Formula 1: Nikita Mazepin playing ‘victim’, blaming others?

Nikita Mazepin’s first statement after being fired by Haas ahead of the 2022 Formula 1 season was exactly what you might have expected.

Nikita Mazepin was cut by Haas ahead of the 2022 Formula 1 season, as the team unsurprisingly cut ties with title sponsor Uralkali amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Haas removed all branding of the Russian fertilizer company from their cars ahead of the third and final day of the preseason test session at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last Friday.

They committed to doing the same for the final preseason test session of the year at Bahrain International Circuit, but now they won’t have to worry about that.

The reason for dropping Mazepin is the fact that it is his father, Dmitry, is the CEO of Uralchem, which holds a controlling stake in Uralkali. He has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was one of the oligarchs called to meet with him amid the invasion.

So with Uralkali’s funding no longer accepted by Haas, Nikita was always going to lose his ride.

After learning his fate, he took to Twitter to issue a statement, one in which he claims he “understands the difficulties” but goes on to basically blame the FIA for his removal.

Here is what he had to say on Twitter.

"“Dear fans and followers, I am very disappointed to hear that my F1 contract has been terminated. 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. Nikita.”"

All in all, his statement shows he has absolutely no idea of the magnitude of what is going on.

Look, we get it. In the grand scheme of things, he is, for lack of a better word, innocent. But he has done absolutely nothing to distance himself from the ongoing evil in which his father is involved, and he doesn’t seem to have any idea why he was actually removed.

While he certainly isn’t responsible for the chaos, this statement of “understanding the difficulties” rings completely hollow to anybody who actually has any real understanding whatsoever of the situation and who is to blame.

Yes, Ukraine’s motor racing federation did try to get the FIA to ban Russian and Belarusian drivers from competing, and that justifiably ruffled some feathers. But the FIA refused to enact that ban. It wasn’t any sort of “Russian ban” that led to Mazepin’s removal.

His father’s company and money are literally involved in the funding of this war, and they had also been funding his Formula 1 seat. In fact, they were pretty much the only reasons he had his seat.

Even when he was signed last year, when the team confirmed Uralkali as their new title sponsor, it was a well-known fact that he was there because of the paycheck.

Without Uralkali, Mazepin was never going to get that seat. So with Uralkali unsurprisingly sacked, he was never going to keep that seat. It’s so easy that anybody else in the world with zero career points in Formula 1 could understand it.

What, exactly, is being “completely ignored”? What, exactly, were the “conditions” which he supposedly showed an “ongoing willingness to accept”?

If it’s the idea of racing under a neutral flag, he was already technically doing that, due to the Russian doping scandal and the ongoing restrictions on Russian athletes from competing in international sporting events.

It’s also interesting to hear that “no process was followed in this unilateral step”, as if he was entitled to the seat even without the money that landed him there to begin with.

I’m sure Mazepin will have more to say in the coming days, but how much of it will be worth listening to? How much of it will show any semblance of an awareness of reality? And how much of it will be a continued effort to play the “victim” role with a distorted illustration of why it’s somehow somebody else’s fault?

Judging by Mazepin’s checkered past, it’s not hard to see why he still doesn’t get it.