Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Haas Formula 1 team was forced to take drastic measures regarding its sponsorship of Dmitry Mazepin’s Uralkali company and his son Nikita, who drove for the team with Mick Schumacher. Eventually, Haas severed ties with Uralkali and the Mazepins. Shortly afterwards, both Nikita and Dmitry Mazepin joined a list of Russians facing financial sanctions, with the aim of financially punishing wealthy Russians with ties to President Vladimir Putin. And in a new development, Reuters reports that according to information received from two police sources, Italy has now confiscated properties from the Mazepins worth 87 million pounds. The report states that the operation targeted a villa known as “Rocky Ram” located “in the north of the island of Sardinia”. Following the news of his dismissal from Haas, Mazepin had said that he would set up an organization to support Russian athletes who had been excluded from the games as a result of the conflict. And in a recent interview, he referred to the situation for Russian athletes and the fact that he was included in the list of sanctions. “I do not agree with being in sanctions and I have said in the past that I intend to fight it,” Mazepin told the BBC’s Stephen Sackur. “Maybe now is not the right time because if you look at the whole situation that is happening against athletes in the general case, it is a cancellation of a culture against my country.” After Haas removed Mazepin from his roster in 2022, he brought back Kevin Magnussen, who last raced in Formula 1 with the team in 2020. The Danish runner enjoyed something like a fairytale return to the series, qualifying for the P7 in Bahrain before crossing the P5 line at the start of the season. A P9 followed in Saudi Arabia, although Magnussen failed to score points in the Australian Grand Prix, a poorly planned safety car certainly did not help its purpose.
