Nikita Mazepin will continue with the Haas Formula 1 team in the 2022 F1 World Championship.
Mazepin hails from Russia but is unable to formally represent the country under the national flag due to the cross-sport ban on Russian competitors as a result of the ongoing investigations of doping by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Pre-F1 Career
A product of Russia’s burgeoning domestic motorsport scene, Mazepin climbed the ranks of karting in his home nation before making his official car racing debut in 2015 with turns in the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC, Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and New Zealand-based Toyota Winter Series.
Success was modest with a single podium coming in Formula Renault NEC (North European series) en route to 12th in the standings for Josef Kaufmann Racing, while his Eurocup outings failed to yield any points-scoring finishes. In a Toyota Winter Series won by future F1 rival Lance Stroll he was 18th out of the 21 entries overall.
Nikita Mazepin - Hitech F3
F3
Mazepin stepped up to the competitive FIA Formula 3 European Championship for 2016 as team-mate to Mercedes F1 junior George Russell, a move assisted by a significant investment into Hitech Grand Prix from his father, Dimitry Mazepin, Chairman of Uralchem, one of Russia’s largest chemical companies.
Taken under the wing of Hitech boss and former racer Oli Oakes, Mazepin cracked the top ten on only three occasions all season and blotted his copybook by being excluded from the first race of round two in Hungary when he twice ‘punched’ rival Callum Ilott in the face - leaving him with a black eye - after an altercation on track during qualifying.
Staying on board with Hitech for a second season, Mazepin enjoyed a step forward in results and became a regular points-scorer, peaking with a trio of podiums - including a second place finish - at Spa and the Red Bull Ring, earning him tenth in the overall standings by the season’s end.
In addition, Mazepin’s wealthy connections earned him an F1 test debut, first with Force India, outings he’d repeat in 2017 and 2018. He’d go on to test with the championship-dominating Mercedes team, in which he earned headlines in 2019 by topping the timesheets in Spain.
GP3
Progressing to GP3 in what would be the final season for the series under its erstwhile guise before being brought under the F3 banner, Mazepin earned a plum spot with crack outfit ART Grand Prix, champions the previous year with Charles Leclerc.
In what would prove a dominant campaign by the four ART Grand Prix racers - winning nine of the 18 races between them - Mazepin enjoyed his first international success, topping the podium on four occasions, including on his debut in Barcelona, to run team-mate Anthoine Hubert close for the title.
In the end it was the Frenchman that would prevail despite having two fewer wins, with Mazepin ending the year as the ‘winningest’ driver in the runners-up spot, 16 points shy of lifting the overall trophy.
Mazepin
F2
Progressing directly into F2 for 2019, once more with ART, it was a disappointing rookie campaign in a car that took team-mate Nyck de Vries to a dominant title victory with a best finish of eighth place the highlight from five points-scoring outings.
His season was marred by a huge accident in which he was blamed during his home Sochi round. Starting from a reverse grid pole position, Mazepin - together with Jack Aitken - overshot the braking zone into the tricky Turn 2 right-hander.
However, while Aitken slowed to navigate the correct route back on track as stipulated by the FIA, Mazepin went to the right of the marker borders, leading to an unawares Aitken to clip the Dallara as they rejoined the track. Breaking Mazepin’s rear suspension, the contact speared him straight into an innocent Nobuharu Matsushita, who was sent deep into the barriers at high-speed head-on. Despite an overnight hospital stay, Matsushita escaped unharmed.
Despite this, Mazepin stayed on track for the 2020 F2 season, returning to the Hitech Grand Prix fold, the team making its debut in the series after graduating from F3.
In familiar surroundings Mazepin enjoyed a competitive season and largely had the measure of experienced team-mate Luca Ghiotto. Overcoming a difficult start to the year, Mazepin was on the podium for the first time by Round 3 at the Hungaroring before notching up a well-judged first win during the following event at Silverstone.
Another win followed in Mugello, which together with three more podiums lifted Mazepin up the overall standings to secure fifth overall, thus earning him enough Superlicence points to make the move into F1 the following year.
His year wasn’t without more controversy though when he was rebuked for an incident at Spa in which he was considered lucky to keep his second place result. Battling with Yuki Tsunoda for the lead, Mazepin was judged to have been too aggressive in overtaking the Japanese driver, thus earning him a five-second post-race penalty which demoted him back to second place.
Letting his feelings known over the radio that he was aggrieved with the decision, Mazepin was alleged to have ‘deliberately’ driven into his second place marker board as he entered parc ferme, marginally missing Tsunoda who was walking past at the time.
Together with other perceived aggressive on-track moments, Mazepin had gained a somewhat notorious reputation by now, enough to make eyebrows raise when Haas confirmed he would form one-half of its all-new driver pairing for the 2021 F1 season alongside F2 champion Mick Schumacher.
Mazepin’s rookie season in F1 was a baptism of fire. While the Haas has been clearly the slowest car on the grid due to its lack of development, the Russian has rarely got within half a second of Schumacher in qualifying.
Mazepin tended to fare better in race trim, particularly on the opening laps as he gets ahead of his teammate before the pair battle aggressively for track position.
Mazepin was given an exclusion ‘time out’ of nine hours during Round 2 of the 2016 FIA Formula 3 European Championship at the Hungaroring as punishment for twice punching Callum Ilott in the face during an argument following an earlier on-track altercation. The penalty forced him to miss the first race of the weekend.
Mazepin was solely blamed for a collision during the Sochi F2 Sprint Race after he and Jack Aitken ran wide at Turn 2 on the opening lap. While Aitken legally navigated the ‘chicane’ required to ensure he returned to the circuit in a safe manner, Mazepin stayed to the right of the marker boardings and was instead clipped by Aitken as he returned to circuit at a higher-speed. The contact speared Mazepin into Nobuharu Matsushita, who slammed into the barriers high-speed head-on and resulted in an overnight stay in hospital. Stewards stated ‘Mazepin forced Aitken off track’ and ‘took a shortcut’ leading to the sizeable accident. It concluded he had shown ‘a total lack of due care for his fellow drivers’ and was handed a 15-place grid penalty for the final round in Abu Dhabi. (VIDEO)
During the Spa-Francorchamps F2 Feature Race, Mazepin was judged to have made an aggressive pass on Yuki Tsunoda, for which he was handed a five-second time penalty. After crossing the finish line first on the road, the penalty demoted Mazepin back to second place. Aggrieved by the decision, Mazepin allegedly struck his P2 marker board in parc ferme in deliberate protest, which came close to striking Tsunoda as it fell. After an investigation, Mazepin was allowed to keep his podium finish but handed a suspended grid drop for the next event for ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’
Mazepin faced calls to be dropped from Haas’ newly announced 2021 F1 driver line-up after posting a video to his social media channels in which he is seen travelling as a passenger in a car and reaching over to grope the breast of a woman in the back seat. Haas went to the extent of issuing a statement rebuking its fresh signing, while Mazepin apologised for his actions. The woman in the video initially said it was a joke between friends, but has since seemingly retracted this in posts on her social media channels that appear to be in reference to Mazepin.
Nikita Mazepin Fast Facts
Nikita Mazepin will have enjoyed considerable mileage in F1 machinery prior to his race debut with his first outing coming back in 2016 when he tested for Force India. He’d go on to test again for the team in 2017 and 2018
Mazepin is also a loose member of the Mercedes F1 test team, driving its car in 2017 as part of privately arranged tests, before going against other F1 drivers at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona in 2019 and setting the fastest time.
Mazepin’s father is Belarussian-born Dimitry Mazepin, majority shareholder and Uralchem Integrated Chemicals. He is understood to be worth between $1.3 - 1.8 billion [as of 2015], making him one of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen.
