Formula 1 News: Losing F1 career cost Mazepin 'several million'

(GMM) Nikita Mazepin (pictured) says both he and Russia still belong in Formula 1, as he continues to fight for any kind of motorsport future in Europe more than two years after being ousted from the grid.

The 26-year-old was dropped by Haas just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, ending both his F1 career and the lucrative title sponsorship with Uralkali, the chemical giant owned by his father Dmitry Mazepin.

Since then, the younger Mazepin has launched multiple legal actions – including a case against the European Union to lift sanctions that prevent him from traveling freely across the continent. He has also repeatedly expressed interest in returning to F1 or high-level racing.

Now, in a fresh interview with Russia’s TASS news agency, Mazepin insisted that a broader Russian comeback is possible.

“I hope that, in some form, I and Russia as a whole will return to Formula 1,” he said. “We are truly needed there. It was not for nothing that we occupied our effective place in the Grand Prix.”

He also referred to earlier ambitions for a Russian-national F1 team, reportedly backed at the time by oligarch networks with Kremlin ties.

Plans to shift the axed Russian GP from Sochi to Igora Drive near St Petersburg in 2023 were also scrapped following the outbreak of war.

“I still believe Russia has a place in Formula 1,” Mazepin said.

March 26, 2025

(GMM) Nikita Mazepin claims the way his Formula 1 career abruptly ended ultimately cost him “several million dollars”.

The Russian, backed by his father’s company Uralkali, was sacked by Haas at the outset of the Ukraine war – and even prevented from racing elsewhere due to being specifically named in European Union sanctions.

Mazepin, 26, subsequently challenged the sanctions – and ultimately succeeded.

“According to European constitutional law, you can’t just sanction a person,” he told sports.ru. “The wording said that I was connected to my father’s business activities.”

And Dmitry Mazepin, his father, has been closely linked with Vladimir Putin.

“My father is a successful entrepreneur who started a business from scratch – a major taxpayer in Russia,” Nikita insisted.

“The (Russian) state, in their (Europe’s) opinion, uses tax revenues to finance actions punishable by the European Union. But in two and a half years we have explained that there is me on one hand and my father on the other.

“We are different individuals, with nothing in common in business. And the existence of family ties does not allow the European courts to impose sanctions on me. That’s why they were lifted.”

Mazepin admits his chances of ever returning to F1 are very slim. So how much has the entire saga cost him, financially?

“I lost a long-term contract with Haas,” he explained. “It contained quite a few sums that would have multiplied every year. I think it would have been several million dollars.

“Also, I had certain European property that I lost when the assets were frozen and I did not get it back after they were unfrozen.”

It has been reported that one of Mazepin’s lost properties was a villa in Italy.