Haas chose Russia’s Nikita Mazepin

[mat205125]

Pizzaeatingking said:

Interesting looking guy.

As much as I'd love to see all 20 seats taken by the top drivers in the world, it never has and never will be like that. Without the Mazepin & Strolls of the world the F1 grid would be much smaller, no RP, possibly no Hass, would Williams have survived without Latifi & Strolls cash? We should be thankful for that I suppose.

Agree, however I wish there were 30 seats, with space for a full mix of high paid superstars, pay per drive billionaire offspring, and opportunity for the gifted talent up and coming superstars

[HustleRussell]

Pizzaeatingking said:

Interesting looking guy.

Looks like a toe.

[Kraken]

mat205125 said:

and opportunity for the gifted talent up and coming superstars

But they don't get to the stage of being noticed without huge amounts of money to start with. There are people spending six figures every year in the base levels of karting these days.

Doesn't matter what your talent level is you're going nowhere in modern motorsport 99.99% of the time without money and lots of it.

[Exige77]

Kraken said:

Exige77 said:

Can you explain this ?

You must have an unusual definition of Rich

Rich is all relative. To someone on the average wage someone earning three times more than them is rich. Surveys show that in the UK people consider someone earning over £60k a year (in todays money) is wealthy/rich.

I was an IT manager and then an IT contractor at about the same time as Hamilton and I was never out of the top 10% of earners in the country and often in the top 5%. I rarely took on more than one contract at a time either whereas Hamilton did. In my book if the vast majority of people in the country are earning less than you then that makes you rich.

Just because Hamilton chose to spend the majority of his income on his sons racing doesn't make him poor in the true sense.

It's one of the things that always bugs me with the Hamilton story. There were loads of dads around that era earning far less getting their kids into karts and drivers further up the chain living in tiny caravans to afford to drive and even losing their houses.

That’s still a very unusual definition of rich.

I dint think Anthony Hamilton had that “disposable” income. He had to go and “find it” as many others could do if they where that obsessed and motivated to do it. Winning at motorsports is very very tough indeed and is all consuming. You really have to do what ever is needed just to take part.

Once Lewis started to get noticed he certainly got some outside support. That’s well documented.

[HustleRussell]

Exige77 said:

That’s still a very unusual definition of rich.

Top 5% of earnings, independent of any personal wealth, is rich?

I think you're being very charitable to describe it as an 'unusual' definition, I think it's just plain wrong.

[Exige77]

HustleRussell said:

Exige77 said:

That’s still a very unusual definition of rich.

Top 5% of earnings, independent of any personal wealth, is rich?

I think you're being very charitable to describe it as an 'unusual' definition, I think it's just plain wrong.

Yes, I was being charitable.

As a regular at Rye House and the other Super 1 tracks back in the day, I saw up close what was happening. I had a few run ins with Anthony and can vouch for his determination and single mindedness to get Lewis winning.

[Nampahc Niloc]

Some evidence to back up what Kraken defines as rich:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.cityam.com/here...

[North West Tom]

Didn't realise he had his own thread so will cross-post this from the other thread:

Are Gene and Guenther really going to put up with this st from Mazepin? (NSFW)

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/k9hg80/...

For those unable to view, he posted a now-deleted Instagram story of him groping the tits of some drunk model in the back of a car.

[JonChalk]

Maybe for not much longer though:

https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/133661769319...

Gunther balancing his morals vs Mazepin's father's money right now?

[JonChalk]

I had forgotten about Mazepin's history until a Twitter post reminded me of this;

https://www.autosport.com/f3/news/123917/mazepin-b...

[sgtBerbatov]

JonChalk said:

Maybe for not much longer though:

https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/133661769319...

Gunther balancing his morals vs Mazepin's father's money right now?

He'll be there for as long as his dad is paying the bills. No amount of change.org petition spam will change that.

[budgie smuggler]

There'll be a (non) apology and it will be back to business as usual.

edit: as we speak
https://www.planetf1.com/news/nikita-mazepin-sorry...

Edited by budgie smuggler on Wednesday 9th December 11:25

[Big Nanas]

I didn't see the video but some of the descriptions on Twitter make it sound very sketchy indeed. Id expect the girl in the video will be handsomely compensated to ensure her silence.
Free for Daddy's boy to carry on without any consequences at all.
It's not good enough, really. Definitely not a good look for F1.

[budgie smuggler]

Big Nanas said:

I didn't see the video but some of the descriptions on Twitter make it sound very sketchy indeed. Id expect the girl in the video will be handsomely compensated to ensure her silence.
Free for Daddy's boy to carry on without any consequences at all.
It's not good enough, really. Definitely not a good look for F1.

tbh it's the kind of thing where it could sound worse in writing than it is. However even if he knows her, and she's fine with the behaviour, and fine with it being posted, it still would be an absolutely braindead thing to post. It just shows a complete lack of judgement.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Wednesday 9th December 11:46

[robuk]

Basically he won't post it to social media in future.

[ch37]

"Have to hold myself to a higher standard as an F1 driver"

???

How about as a human being! It shouldn't matter that he is now in the spotlight.

It'll be fascinating with him around anyway (by fascinating I mean an absolute car crash), will certainly add some spikiness to the paddock (and more than likely, the track).

Edited by ch37 on Wednesday 9th December 12:23

[Blink982]

Yellow dials and a black/red interior. What was Mazepin thinking about?

[ridds]

ch37 said:

"Have to hold myself to a higher standard as an F1 driver"

???

How about as a human being! It shouldn't matter that he is now in the spotlight.

It'll be fascinating with him around anyway (by fascinating I mean an absolute car crash), will certainly add some spikiness to the paddock (and more than likely, the track).

Edited by ch37 on Wednesday 9th December 12:23

Exactly what I thought. He's Scumbag with a rich dad imho

[Petrus1983]

ridds said:

Exactly what I thought. He's Scumbag with a rich dad imho

I posted this on another thread - but a very interesting read, maybe the family forgot the exposure they’d get -

http://rusletter.com/articles/the_owners_of_uralka...

[ridds]

Never going to be a pretty story when Russia and Billions are involved.

Haas should take the moral high ground here and boot him. No matter how much financial strife they are in.