When war was initiated by the Russians in February, it kick started a series of events for FORMULA 1 team HAAS and their 2022 season.
The first step was for the team to drop the sponsorship livery from the car during the first test in Barcelona. Then during the interval between tests in Barcelona and Bahrain, news broke of HAAS cutting ties with Uralkali altogether and their Russian driver Nikita Mazepin.
Uralkali is co-owned by Nikita Mazepin’s billionaire father Dmitry Mazepin, who has very close ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. Dmitry was so close in fact that in the days leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, he was seen in meetings with the Russian Despot.
In response to being dropped by HAAS, Uralkali have launched legal action against the team, with the aim to recoup their investment.
“As most of the sponsorship funding for the 2022 season has already been transferred to Haas and given that the team terminated the sponsorship agreement before the first race of the 2022 season, Haas has thus failed to perform its obligations to Uralkali for this year’s season.“
“Uralkali shall request the immediate reimbursement of the amounts received by Haas.”
Uralkali press release
Today the team responded standing firm in their conviction that they will not be giving Uralkali any of their money back and in fact will be counterclaiming for money owed, after what they would have earned had Uralkali remained with the team for the full season.
The American-owned team is adamant that it had every right to end the contract because of a clause within the sponsorship agreement, its states that Uralkali cannot… ‘injure, bring into dispute, ridicule, or lessen the public reputation, goodwill of favourable image of Haas’.
“According to unanimous legal scholars and case law, the party which terminates the agreement for breach of the other party is under no obligation to return to such party what it has already received under the agreement.“
“The claim of Uralkali to obtain the re-payment of the down paid amount of EUR 12,000,000 is therefore ungrounded and rejected.”
HAAS official response letter to Uralkali
In addition to demanding their missing sponsorship money HAAS have confirmed that if it isn’t paid in full, they will not honour their promise to deliver a 2021 car which was an additional clause in the Uralkali/HAAS sponsorship contract.
“Unless and until the aforesaid amount will have been paid to Haas no obligation exists on Haas’ side to deliver and no delivery of the F1 car will occur.”
HAAS official response letter to Uralkali
This has obviously shocked the Russian Chemicals company, an unnamed source is reported as saying.
“Everyone understands the world is in a difficult situation, but it is patently ridiculous to argue that Haas is entitled to keep money paid from a contract it exited unilaterally, without rendering any of the agreed upon services.
“They seem to be fine with spending Russian money – and even are asking for more – but don’t want to have any Russians around.
It’s a truly shocking treatment toward a title sponsor who stepped up last season when the team badly needed resources and who had offered to go above and beyond the contracted amounts to provide additional bonuses to team staff to achieve better results for all involved.”
Its clear that it won’t be the last we hear in the situation between HAAS and Uralkali as neither party look to be backing down, a court date will very likely be on the cards between the two companies.
HAAS chose to replace the outgoing Russian driver Nikita Mazepin with non other than previous HAAS driver Kevin Magnussen. The line up of Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen have started the season fairly well with the team standing 7th in the constructors championship on 12 points.