Topic: F1 Formula Sports Racing - Sportsbet.io promotions & discussion thread - page 116. (Read 29914 times)

I've watched all of it over the week-end. Not bad, still I was weaker than I expected after such a season. While they didn't want to upset neither of the top 2 teams, they've just shown what they said, without also showing (more) clear when they were wrong (i.e. most of the time). But it has the drama (after such a season, that's normal) and also gave some very nice insights that I've missed or didn't know about at all (from Mazepin family behavior to Cyril departure and the way Jost is handling the things at Williams). I was also jealous on Guenther Steiner for his holiday in the mountains

They could have been also insisting a bit more on the radio chaos Michael Masi was involved in. They've let him tell that the interaction with the teams was his job, but could have told more. I don't say that getting him sacked is right or wrong, but at least Netflix could have shed a little more light on the matter.

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I've seen only the first day of pre-season run, I still have to see the rest, however, I expect an interesting season. I hope the RedBull is not that much better than the rest as I understood (or misunderstood?!).

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I don't have favorites for this year. I was against Lewis for long time (because of prima donna behavior and never seeing when he does wrong to others, while insisting how much wrong is done against poor him), I am now also against Max (beyond aggressive, reckless, somewhat unprofessional - he's not a kid anymore and somebody should tell him).


(source: https://twitter.com/guillle77/status/1503056047853948938)

Just finished watching half of the new season of Drive to Survive and they really did custom edit it to focus on team Haas and their situation with their sponsor.
Episode 4 was almost entirely about Mazepin and his father who had been recently striken off the car completely and removed from the team.
Here are the titles of season 4 out now:
1. Clash of the Titans
2. Ace in the Hole
3. Tipping Point
4. A Mountain to Climb
5. Staying Alive
6. A Point to Prove
7. Growing Pains
8. Dances with Wolff
9. Gloves Are Off
10. Hard Racing

WOW!  
All familiar faces!  
He had already ridden for Haas for two or three years, I don't remember exactly.  At the same time, he was known as a rude and rather arrogant both during the race and the rest of the time.  
I understand that Haas has now lost money from the Russian oligarch Mazepin (father of the racer Nikita Mazepin) and took old pilot, who is familiar with the car.  But he clearly must have a sponsor to compensate for the departure of Mazepin's money.  
Unlike Nikita, Kevin,, was in the top 5 a couple of times in some races.  
And by the way, as I understand it, he already had a lot of contracts over the past couple of years in other races than F1.

Testing has begun and is available via the official site's livestream:
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.gallery-watch-as-the-2022-cars-including-mercedes-radically-updated-w13-hit.QyS8y91DoZqC3EvGeU262.html

There is 20% of the F1 TV Pro annual subscription until March 13th if registering on their site so to watch the races while they happen.

Here are who are racing today:

Quite a lot of news on the next season in the last two weeks! 
Races in Russia were canceled, Mazepin was fired in the Haas team (although he should have been fired even earlier due to the disgusting results of the last season ),  Haas contract with their main sponsor from Russia was terminated. 

And I think we are destined to hear a lot more news in the near future.

Just a reminder, the test will be live broadcasted tomorrow, and Mercedes is rumored to use a "new version of the car".

Teams should use the real car this week, lets's see if Redbull and Ferrari will keep their dominance shown so far.

Very true Silberman!
If it were those two drivers but they were contending on letting Mazepin go or keeping him.
It was surely an easy decision to make from his past performance on the team.

So Haas has replaced him on the eve of pre-season testing in Bahrain with a rather familiar face:
Kevin Magnussen

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.breaking-kevin-magnussen-to-make-sensational-f1-return-with-haas-in-2022.7m4IFYh7gmD3ZGppbs5f88.html

Who last took the wheel for Haas back in 2020!

It is that simple, just on performance alone the change was justified, and when we add that he was there just because of the sponsor and now the sponsor cannot buy his seat anymore then he is definitely out, as you say it would have been interesting if someone of Hamilton caliber was the one in this situation because even if his original team fired him I am sure another team will hire him as soon as they could, since that level of talent cannot be found that easily.

It was the right move by F1 and FIA because if it wasn't done at the time they did, there would be backlash from the other teams and the fans.
Many other sports had already. There was an incident in an olympic event where a russian athlete won a silver medal while on the podium had a symbol which has been shown on posters in Russia in support of this war right in plain view while the Ukraine athlete won the gold medal.
So any symbols and support of Russia is not tolerated on news media as the same is happening in Russia where they are calling it something different.
Plus whenever I watched a race live, I had seen Mazepin at the bottom of the racing table.
So I agree with most on here with their responses so far.
Nikita wasn't the greatest driver and was only put on the team because of the sponsorship deal and not with his driving awareness.

This statement from F1 was quite easy to make. It had long been clear that this Mazepin had little talent. His father is very wealthy, he has, as it were, bought his son from F1. He can of course race a bit, but is far too bad for F1. Have read that he is one of 3 drivers to have 0 points in last season. So the choice of F1 team Haas to kick him out is not that difficult. If Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton were Russian, I would have liked to know how it went. You don't just put them out for a while, then the competition is sure to get away with it.

ya.ya.yo!

As @NeuroticFish said, it's just business. Mazepin was needed  as long as Uralkali were giving money. I don't feel sorry for him because there is plenty of goid drivers who can't get seat in F1 because of rich father's kids like him.
But I think it wouldn't be easy for him to race when he get so much negative attitude. It's not his fault, but his father is close friend of Putin, it would be bad taste if he would continue to race like nothing didn't happened.

I'd say that's nothing personal and not even against Russians, like some are implying on twitter.
It's simply business: they need somebody who can bring them money, the fatter the sponsor, the better, no matter how bad good driver would that be.
Let's be honest: Nikita's seat was not assured by his skills either.

Just a quick question, what do you think about the move of Haas removing Mazepin from their current roster?

I mean, I genuinely feel sorry for the kid even if he showed some a**hole attitude from the past. I think he was slowly redeeming himself and proving that he can be a better driver from every race that he participated on. Though, I do agree that there are better racers that are more fit to be in the F1 league compared to him; so I somehow feel that Haas was just looking for the perfect escape outlet to replace Mazepin with a better driver.

Nikita Mazepin's driving contract for Haas had been done as their sponsorship with Uralkali has been cut.
They had removed all logos of the sponsor from their car during the test race in Barcelona this past weekend.
A new driver for Haas will be announced this week for the team.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/33419710/haas-terminates-contracts-russian-driver-nikita-mazepin-title-sponsor-uralkali

I have read about that and without a doubt it seems that those Russian billionaires are doing what they can to get their money out of the west before their accounts are seized, however this is going to weaken substantially the position of Roman Abramovich over the negotiation table, as anyone interested on buying the Chelsea can just make him a low offer and then bid their time knowing that time plays against Abramovich and that he will most likely have to accept an offer way lower than what he expects to sell the club.

He is just a sponsor of their racing team as this was the same information I had heard; he was the owner of Uralkai company.
What is disturbing are the type of investments these type of sponsors have in these sports clubs around the F1 and other sports.
Because now they are starting to withdraw their assets from many different areas as the crackdown starts to happen by the UK and other countries:

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-billionaires-wealth-lose-84-billion-dollars-under-a-week-2022-3
Just heard Roman Abramovich is trying to sell Chelsea football club and is asking for $4 billion.
Although when he took over, it was for several million when he bought the club.
This shows you they're scrambling to get their money out before they get them seized and or accounts frozen in the UK banking system.

Renault group this season risk and renews their engines. They will start using the split turbo system instead of the durable but relatively slow engines they are using now. This result means a complete redesign of the engine. The disadvantage and risk of the team, which will continue on its way with a lighter and improved performance engine, will be that they have an engine that can be considered unstable. Maybe the renewed engine will bring the success they want. On the tracks i will pay particular attention to Renault-Alpine.

Mazepin's father is just sponsor, he is owner of Uralkali company. With all sanctions and Russian economy falling down probably they won't be able to spnsor Haas soon. Without SWIFT they won't be able to send money them. If Haas won't receive money from Uralkali, I'm sure that Mazepin will lose his seat.
Disgusting.

As long as a country's flag is there, world politics are involved, in a way or another.

There were already cases (they may have been related to doping though) the sportsmen were allowed, but without representing the country. Maybe this should be done more wider: we're all human, why represent one country or another? (Imho all countries should unify - but not through war, obviously - and ruled by individuals employed for the job based on actual skills.)


Is it the owner or "just" the main sponsor?
BTW, in the F1 world where everybody wants to become a driver, I don't know what's going to happen with Nikita Mazepin.
I've read "rumors" that he may get banned from F1, and obviously there's no shortage of possible replacements.

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Did you read about Bernie Ecclestone latest interview defending Putin?!

This is what I think as well, while some people may decide to not race out of principle I think the main reason would be the security of the pilots, their crews and the public in general, after all if Ukraine is annexed by Russia then it is obvious there are going to be freedom fighters that will not accept this and they may try to damage the current government by attacking civilians, and a public event like this could be a target for them, so it is better to avoid racing there for the time being.