Formula One Vault

This Grand Prix – Dutch

Hello, this Dutch Grand Prix saw McLaren continue to take the fight to Red Bull, answering a big question we posed last week, Red Bull weren’t able to just romp back to dominance again. It’s a key start for Lando Norris with victory in Zandvoort is he about to cause a big upset like Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 by a strong second half to the title, what does Red Bull do in response?

General News

Liberty Media has announced it is selling a $825million stake in F1 to fund the purchase of MotoGP. In April, Liberty announced a$4.2bn deal to purchase  86% of Dorna which owns the sport with the remainder staying in the hands of Moto GP itself.

Ten million shares at around £75 will be sold allowing liberty to raise the revenue required to complete the Dorna deal – although a part of the proceeds will go towards corporate purposes including debt repayment.

Confirming the sale of shares on Thursday, a Liberty Media statement read: “Liberty Media Corporation announced today that it has priced the previously-announced public offering of 10,650,000 shares of its Series C Liberty Formula One Common Stock (“FWONK”) at a public offering price of $77.50 per share. Liberty Media also granted the underwriter of the offering an option to purchase up to an additional 1,597,500 FWONK shares.

Weekend Recap

FP1 saw Lando Norris top the wet and windy session with a 12.302, which put him two-tenths faster than Max Verstappen with Lewis Hamilton third. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, on medium-compound tyres rather than the soft used by those ahead of him, was fourth. Mercedes’ George Russell was fifth, from Williams’ Alex Albon and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

FP2 was topped by Russell with a 10.702 which put him six hundredths faster than Piastri. Piastri spilt the two Mercedes as he went half a tenth faster than Lewis Hamilton while teammate Norris put his McLaren fourth, a tenth and a half behind Hamilton, as the top four were covered by around a quarter of a second.

FP3 saw limited running again, Pierre Gasly was fastest with a 20.311 on the intermediates going nearly a tenth and a half faster than Kevin Magnussen. The session was red-flagged for forty minutes following a huge crash for Logan Sargeant just after ten minutes into the session. Valtteri Bottas was third going over two-tenths faster than Norris, and Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin fifth

Qualifying saw Norris beat Verstappen by three and a half seconds to take McLaren’s first pole at Zandvoort in forty years. Norris set 09.673, stopping the Dutchman taking a fourth home pole in a row while Piastri was third in the mixed conditions.  But the second McLaren lost time on his final attempt losing nearly half a second to Norris on his last attempt.

Norris converted pole into an early lead from then on he put in a dominant performance despite being bogged down at the start and losing out the lead he managed to catch Verstappen and pass on lap seventeen before winning by twenty-two seconds. Piastri using the undercut on his way to third, after Leclerc had to fend off the second McLaren following the first stops with him finishing two seconds ahead

Red Bull

Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache has conceded the team may have reached the limit when it comes to developing this concept of car, but suggested that they have not reached the limit of the regulations. Since 2022 when the current regulations were introduced the team has won three-quarters of the races.

However, since Shanghai, the team has only won three of the following eight races which have been shared by Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes, as well as Carlos Sainz’s win in Melbourne.

Asked by Motorsport.com whether the RB20 had delivered as he and the team expected pre-season, Wache replied: “I would say not really. We improved compared to last year, without doubt, but we didn’t deliver what we expected in some areas. Especially in the high-speed corners, we expected a little bit more than what we have.”

Wache believes that this could be down to correlation issues and the fact the team are using an old wind tunnel, as well as the ATR regulations as they have led the championship at each of the resets since 2022, meaning they have lost a lot of time.

On whether Red Bull was beginning to hit the ceiling with regards to its development path, Wache admitted: “Our ceiling [with one specific concept] maybe, but it doesn’t mean that it is the overall ceiling. In this business, you take ideas from the others as well. During the past two years people took our ideas, but fundamentally you need the others to find some other stuff as well to make a step.”

Verstappen last year broke the record for the  most wins in a single season for the second successive campaign last season, securing nineteen victories which included a record-breaking ten in a row between Miami and Monza. Wache repeated the message that Red Bull has been saying they didn’t believe those who expected their dominance to continue, pointing out they didn’t have the fastest car and thought it would have closed up sooner.

Asked if the gap closing was more down to rival improvements or Red Bull’s smaller-than-expected progress, Wache said: “I think it is both together. The limitations you have with these regulations are quite high and what you can find to make more steps is getting more difficult of course.”

Following Friday’s practice Verstappen said that Red Bull were “a bit too slow” compared to his rivals. In the dry FP2 session the Dutchman could only manage fifth, just under three-tenths off and behind both Mercedes and McLaren.

He said, “FP1 I didn’t really get a lot of running in. I guess in FP2 you could see a little bit more where you are. [We’re] a bit too slow on the short run, a bit too slow on the long run, so a bit of work to do. At the moment, [there’s] no clear answer of how to improve that specifically, but we’ll look into things. Just a bit too slow, as simple as that.”

I think on Friday we already had an answer to the question about whether Red Bull would return to dominance, in the session I saw there was nothing which made me feel there was more to come and still Sergio Perez was six-tenths off in that session. But that could be down to not showing everything in practice, and having an acting race engineer with his usual engineer on paternity leave.

Perez added, “It’s obviously a little bit new for all of us to have Woody as Race Engineer. It’s something that stands out on my side, but I think every session is just going to get better and [we’ll get] more used to it.”

Well Red Bull and Verstappen were beaten at Zandvoort by twenty-three seconds, after which Helmut Marko refused to rule out Norris and McLaren for the championship. Red Bull now only has a thirty-point lead in the constructors, in theory failing to score and McLaren finishing with winning and the second car in the top seven at Monza could see them take the lead.

He told Motorsport.com, “If you look at his fastest lap – from Lando – in his very last lap without DRS, [he did a] 13.8. So, as Max said before the summer break, the team has to work harder and must find improvements because like that his championship is in threat.”

When asked to clarify which championship he was referring to, Marko replied: “Both, both, both.”

He explained that the increased the downforce levels going into the race believing Verstappen just needed to win the start. But as things played out Oscar Piastri had more speed and that meant that Norris could catch Verstappen thus leading to the overtake.

Marko insists Red Bull now must bring its own developments to “every race” to return to the victory levels it has not reached since late June’s Spanish GP.

he said of Red Bull’s development plans, “There are a lot of ideas and different ways. But because of the summer break we couldn’t do anything – but we have to do something. It goes together. We must understand the car better, that there is more balance because with more balance it’s more confidence for the driver and less tyre wear.”

Mercedes

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is set to be handed his first FP1 outing with Mercedes at the Italian Grand Prix to ramp up preparations for his potential promotion to its line-up from 2025. The Italian turned eighteen today and is the favourite to replace Lewis Hamilton when he joins Ferrari.

Antonelli has completed a number of private tests in W13 and W14 F1 cars this year. According to Motorsport.com Italy, Mercedes is set to give Antonelli his first public F1 outing at Monza, one of the mandatory FP1 outings for a rookie driver, where the team is also expected to finalise its arrangement to promote its junior driver into its 2025 driver line-up alongside George Russell.

Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Pete Bonnington, known as Bono, has committed his future to Mercedes after securing a promotion to Head of Race Engineering. Bonnington has worked with Hamilton since the seven-time world champion joined the team in 2013, the duo winning six world titles together.

There have been months of speculation about whether he would follow Hamilton to Ferrari in 2025, but he will continue as Hamilton’s race engineer until the end of the season,

Hamilton was the surprise casualty in Q2 when he qualified twelfth after making a mistake on his second attempt as well as being given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Perez. He told Sky Sports, “It was a pretty shocking session. These things happen, I don’t know what to say. It’s done now but it doesn’t feel good.”

“It all went badly from the moment the situation with Perez happened. I did my best to get out of the way, I was far to the left as possible, but timing was bad. It was a domino effect probably from that moment. It just went from bad to worse.” He also told F1TV that it was frustrating with the changes making the car a “nightmare” to drive.

He added, “The car was massively snappy today. Yesterday was a lot of understeer and then we tried to dial that out and went more the other way.”

The stewards ruled, “whilst there has been appropriate warning by the team and albeit the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede the other car and therefore consider the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations.”

Meanwhile, George Russell believes that he overheated his tyres leaving him fourth after spending most of Q1 and Q2 on the pace of the McLaren. Russell improved by only three tenths in Q3, which saw his gap to polesitter Norris balloon to over half a second. Russell said afterwards, “In Q2 my lap felt half-decent and I was the same pace as McLaren, so I went into Q3 thinking I had a shot at pole and then the pace just didn’t really come.”

He explained “I don’t think any of it is in the car, to be honest. It’s all down to the tyres. I was on a really strong lap, I was matching Lando, I think I was two and a half tenths up on myself.”

Russell was convinced the pace was still in the car, but pointed to his tyres overheating through the final part of his last hot lap as the main factor behind his modest improvement in Q3.

Mercedes struggles continued in the race with Russell dropping from fourth to finish seventh one place ahead of Hamilton, who recovered from fourteenth on the grid following a three-place grid penalty.

Russell went into this race after losing victory at Spa and a July where Mercedes were fighting for victory at every race but this weekend has been puzzled by the lack of pace. He said “We just had no pace. I was just dropping like a stone, especially quite surprised versus Ferrari. We were expecting to be comfortably ahead of them, and Charles [Leclerc] was quicker, Carlos [Sainz] was catching me.”

“Clearly we got something wrong with the tyres. After the first couple of laps I thought we were on course for a podium here, I knew the overtaking was going to be difficult. I was really shocked at how fast McLaren were.” I think they are still having problems in finding the correct operating window to consistently fight for wins and this type of circuit looked more difficult for Mercedes going into the weekend.

Hamilton appeared happier with his race, though frustrated by the penalty which he believed cost him the chance of a podium. The seven time champion thought he could have fought for the podium after using a two-stop to finish eighth five seconds behind Russell.

He said, “If I didn’t have the problem in qualifying then yes. I think I had the pace today to be in the top five – if I started fourth for example I would’ve finished at least fourth.”

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc saws its “always good news” teaming up with a driver of Lewis Hamilton’s calibre, as will be the case at Ferrari. Hamilton signed a contract with Ferrari at the start of the year before the season began to replace Carlos Sainz at the team becoming the third driver to be his teammate at the Italian manufacturer

The Monegasque is excited about this new challenge, which he sees as an opportunity to learn from F1’s most successful driver in history, as he told Motorsport.com in an exclusive interview.

After praising current team-mate Sainz, whom he branded “such an incredible driver”, Leclerc said: “When you have a seven-time world champion joining the team, it’s always good news. First, because it’s super interesting and super motivating for me. Super interesting because I can learn from one of the best-ever Formula 1 drivers.”

Leclerc had already signed a new deal the week before Hamilton, but for the first time said he was aware when signing the contract there was a possibility of the seven-time champion joining the team. He says that he was happy with that and didn’t ask for details, seeing it as reassuring because it’s a ‘strong signing.’

Adding, “. I think that could be a positive thing seen from our side, and could bring some extremely talented people to the team. So I saw that as a positive, if anything.”

There is an argument that Leclerc has everything to gain from this situation as far as his reputation is concerned. Leclerc’s reputation is on the line, as like Hamilton, he is seen as one of fastest drivers of all time over one-lap.

But Leclerc does not quite agree with this particular outlook on the situation. he explained, “As a driver, I will live as bad whether I’m two tenths behind Lewis or two tenths behind whoever else. For me, it’s a pain I am suffering every time I’m behind my team-mate. You just want to be first, whatever situation you are in.”

Jo Ramirez a former colleague of Adrian Newey says he could overcome barriers which previously stopped him from going to Ferrari, a former colleague has claimed. Ramirez is a veteran of the F1 paddock who worked at McLaren, alongside Newey, for four years.

He insists that a prior reluctance to move permanently to Italy would no longer prohibit Newey from joining Ferrari. Ramirez told Mundo Deportivo, “I don’t think he will retire. I see him in Ferrari, because any job you do in F1 successfully must be done in Ferrari too.”

“Ferrari is the biggest team in F1 and why not, if you have the opportunity… and it’s not about money, because he already has much more money than he can spend in his life. The difficulty could be if he has to go to live in Italy, because he is happy in Britain.” Ramirez says that modern remote working could allow Newey to spend most of the time in the UK and travel to Italy two or three days a week.

Newey designed two title-winning cars for Mika Hakkinen at McLaren when he worked alongside Ramirez.

He joined Red Bull in 2005 where he cemented his reputation as the greatest F1 car designer ever, creating the machines with Sebastian Vettel then Max Verstappen dominated with. But Newey will exit Red Bull at the start of 2025 creating a scramble for his signature.

It’s reported that his decision is between Ferrari and Aston Martin, who has made no secret of their attempts to sign Newey with reportedly a big offer.

Following practice, Leclerc said that the team could be on course for a tough weekend after he could only manage ninth in FP2 three quarters of the pace. That left him scratching for answers as he was behind not just the top three but Aston Martin, RB and Haas.

Speaking about his day, he said “Tough! As expected, I would say. We don’t quite have the pace of the guys in front, unfortunately. I think it’s better than what it looks like on the timesheet at the end of the day, but still not quite in the fight for the win, for sure. There’s quite a bit of work to do still. That’s what we are doing, but I hope it will pay off soon.”

Leclerc says that the predicted rain on Sunday could bring Ferrari back into play, but if they were three-tenths off it would be a difficult weekend.

There was also difficulties for Sainz in FP2, a gearbox issue ended his afternoon, basically leaving him with no running with him describing the weekend as a sprint weekend.

He said, “We go into Saturday almost like a bit of a Sprint weekend because we will only have one practice session to get up to speed and have a good weekend. I’m going to have to hit the ground running tomorrow in FP3, make sure that I’m immediately on the pace, and hopefully we can have still a good performance.”

Following qualifying, Leclerc said that the nine tenth gap to pole was “too much”,  the team were well aware of the feeling of many that the team had slipped to fourth behind McLaren and Mercedes going into this weekend.

When asked by Motorsport.com if this represented the reality for Ferrari right now, Leclerc replied: “Unfortunately, it is. The lap was good and we are nine tenths off, unfortunately, on such a short track. It’s a lot, it’s too much. But yeah, as a team, we are aware of that we are lacking performance. We are working flat out.

“Unfortunately, I repeated myself too much in the last few months, but that’s the reality we are in at the moment, and we are doing absolutely everything to close that gap as soon as possible. Hopefully the upgrades that we’ll bring in the car, hopefully as soon as possible, will help us to close the gap.”

But the nature of Zandvoort means it could be a track-specific issue, Leclerc was unsure given the gap was nine tenths but said they needed to wait and see what the problem was. While admitting the circuit doesn’t suit Ferrari.

Despite their difficulties this weekend Leclerc came from sixth to finish third after being a second off pole. He made a brilliant start to the race passing Perez then fighting his way past Piastri to finish on the podium, which surprised him, I think it was a good turn around which looked unlikely given how tight it has been this season.

Leclerc said after the race, “I’m not very often happy with P3, but I think with today’s race we can be extremely happy with the job we’ve done on a difficult weekend for the team. We’ve been struggling from Friday until the race. In the race we found some more pace, executed a perfect strategy, we undercut two of our competitors and then we managed to keep them behind. So a really strong race for the team – [I’m] really happy to start the second half [of the season] like this.”

Sainz agreed that the pace was unexpected but he recovered from tenth to fifth in the race, after Albon was disqualified from qualifying. He said, “It was a bit of a surprise for me, I’m not going to lie. Our best predictions of our damage limitation today was P7, P8, so to actually make it to P5 is better than expected.”

“I would have never expected to be able to pass a Red Bull and a Mercedes at a track like this, but it’s true that our pace today was really, really strong. I felt very at home in the car since the laps to the grid and I at least thought that we might have a chance to make a bit of a comeback. So yeah, I enjoyed that one.”

Ferrari will be looking to learn again from this weekend to try and figure out why they are going backwards and can’t challenge McLaren and Red Bull.

McLaren

Going into the weekend Lando Norris says he has “not performed at the level of a world champion” so far this season – but still believes he can challenge Max Verstappen for the title

He told BBC News, “I’m still very happy with how the season’s gone, but just one too many mistakes and a few too many points given away. Which is not the level I need to be at if I want to fight for a championship and fight against a driver like Max.”

While the driver’s championship looks more difficult to win, McLaren has a realistic chance of overhauling Red Bull’s lead in the constructors’ championship, because Sergio Perez has struggled to match Verstappen. However, in Friday’s press conference team principal Andrea Stella has refuted Norris’ self-criticism of his efforts across the season, stating that the Briton is performing at “world championship level”.

Stella felt that Norris was exuding his typical self-deprecative “style” in his comments, and was keen to assert that not only did his driver share traits of past world champions in F1, he was already operating at a satisfactory level. He added that it was up to the team to match Norris and ensure that it provided the Englishman with the right opportunities to start winning races more regularly this season.

Norris went on to take pole as he went three and a half tenths faster than Verstappen, describing it as amazing day and a nice lap. He said after qualifying “The qualifying was always pretty smooth and I put in some good laps, especially the one at the end, which is always the most important. A great job by the team and I’m happy with today.”

I think he did really well given the conditions which we know he can be really competitive in. as well as showing once again these upgrades are working, as we keep saying every upgrade has worked since Austria last year.

Oscar Piastri, will start Sunday’s race from third on the grid, having been left to lament a slightly scruffier performance on his final Q3 lap compared to his Q1 and Q2 efforts. the Australian admitted “I just didn’t do a good enough job, really. I think the first half of the lap was pretty solid, then the second half just wasn’t quite what I needed.”

“The car’s been very quick this weekend. It’s a little bit disappointing to not be a bit higher up, but we’ve still got a good race car underneath us, we can get some really good points and hopefully some trophies tomorrow. We’ll give it a crack.”

Despite losing out to Verstappen at the start, Norris managed to fight back and remain in touching distance early on before overtaking the Red Bull on lap eighteen. After which he took control of the race and took his second win by over twenty seconds, It was I think a race which proved that Norris has matured as well as the strong pace McLaren has.

Norris said post-race,  “I wouldn’t say a perfect race because of Lap 1 again, but afterwards the pace was very strong, the car was unbelievable today. I could get comfortable, I could push and get past Max which was the main thing and just go from there. Honestly quite a straightforward race, still tough but very enjoyable.”

Pushed on whether he felt confident that he could win following his pass on Verstappen, Norris admitted that he had believed the victory was possible much earlier than that. He explained, “From quite early on actually, probably Lap 5, 6, 7. I expected Max to start pushing and get a bit of a gap but he never did, so from that point, I knew we were in with a good fight.

Alpine

Jack Doohan will partner Pierre Gasly next season after being promoted from reserve driver. The twenty-one-year-old son of five-time MotoGP champion replaces Esteban Ocon who agreed to part with the team in June and joined Haas.

Doohan said it was “a proud day for my family”.

He added: “I am very grateful for the trust and belief by the team’s senior management. There is so much work ahead to be prepared and ready and I will give my best in the meantime to absorb as much information and knowledge to be ready for the step up.”

Alpine have been going through senior management turmoil for the past year, with Oakes’ appointment only the latest example. He replaced Bruno Famin as team boss, and the Frenchman himself was in the role for just a year following the departure of previous incumbent Otmar Szafnauer.

team principal Oliver Oakes, who has been in his role for less than a month, said: “Jack will become the first driver to graduate from the Alpine academy into a race driver position with the team, so that is exceptionally pleasing for the team and its young driver pathway.”

Oakes was previously boss of the HiTech team which ran Doohan in two Asian F3

Team adviser Flavio Briatore insists the team is not for sale and that he has no plans to cut jobs at its UK base. The 74-year-old former team principal, brought in to reverse Alpine’s declining fortunes, says his “realistic” ambition was for the team to “score some podiums in 2027”.

said: “Something is very clear. Nothing is for sale. [Renault chief executive officer] Luca de Meo doesn’t want to sell the team. Question finito [finished].” He insisted it was not his idea to close the Renault engine programme with the final decision due to be made next month in favour of Mercedes, ending a fifty-year engine programme.

Explaining why the option was being considered, Briatore said: “The problem is the evidence. But whatever our chairman decides is fine with me.”

His remarks are a reference to the fact that Renault has been lagging behind its power-unit manufacturer rivals since hybrid engines were introduced to F1 in 2014. Briatore pointed to the success of McLaren this season, as evidence that a team did not need to be affiliated with a works engine programme from a car manufacturer to be competitive.

On Friday, an email was sent to some media by an Alpine staff committee expressing its opposition to the plan to close Viry. It insisted that the programme designing the engine for the new F1 rules being introduced in 2026 was well advanced and that results were “promising”.

Williams

Williams believes Carlos Sainz joining the team next season will3000000 increase the difficulty of making decisions on the pit wall next season with two cars in close proximity, according to head of vehicle performance Dave Robson. For the past four years, both George Russell and Alex Albon have had a clear advantage over their respective teammates, Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant.

But he believes that Sainz joining next year will make the team similar to a decade ago when Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were evenly matched as well as fighting for points and podiums on a regular basis. Noting that he expects Sainz to be exacting in his demands of the team, Robson said: “I think there’s a couple of things that are going to be a little bit daunting for us as an engineering team.”

He added, “There’s no doubt that it is great news for us and a real signal of intent and will definitely make things better. I don’t really know [Sainz] as an individual, but I do know he has a reputation for really driving everybody very hard to get everything out of the car.”

“It’s just an order of magnitude more difficult on the pit wall when you’ve got two cars directly racing each other. There’s no reason to think that it’s going to end up being bad, definitely not. It’s going to end up being good, but it’s definitely going to be different to what we’ve kind of got used to.”

Maybe Sainz, though many were surprised at the start of the summer break by the decision to join Williams part of the reason could be the investment in recent years and the last few weeks they have set their eyes on the regulation change in 2026. 2025 could be seen as a year for both Sainz and the team to figure out how to get the best out of each other.

Alex Albon was excluded from qualifying after being ound not to be compliant with the FIA’s legality checks. He had enjoyed an impressive Saturday afternoon at Zandvoort and had hurled his newly upgraded Williams into eighth in qualifying to beat Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly in Q3.

In their post-session scrutineering session, the FIA had found the Williams’ floor had lain outside of the maximum bounding box permitted by the regulations and thus reported to the stewards.

Williams had contended that its own measuring devices had shown that it was within the limits which the FIA did not dispute, but that its own scan had proven to be different.

The floor had been among the numerous upgraded parts that Williams had brought to the first race after the summer break; the team had also introduced new sidepods and engine cover bodywork in an attempt to move up the championship order.

Williams did not challenge the verdict, though were disappointed by the decision meaning Albon started the race last.

Sauber

Nico Hulkenberg believes receiving a call from Audi CEO Gernot Doellner about management changes ahead of his move next season “shows respect” and underlines the German manufacturer’s commitment to the project. Audi has already completed the takeover ahead of its formal entry in 2026 and Hulkenberg signed a contract with the team following the takeover earlier in the season.

However, in recent weeks Andreas Seidl and Oliver Hoffmman have been replaced by former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto installed as chief operating and chief technical officer. While Red Bull sporting director Jonathan Wheatley will also join Audi’s F1 team as its new team principal next year.

Hulkenberg revealed that Doellner informed him of the changes, asked how important this was by Motorsport.com, he said, “I don’t know about important, but I think it’s certainly nice. It shows respect and shows how serious he and the brand are about it and that they’re not taking this lightly, that they paying attention. They do see what’s happening, what’s going on and that was good. Very good.”

Hulkenberg who was dropped by Renault/Alpine at the end of 2019, rebuilt his career and was able to make a full-time return after three years as what was called ‘the super sub’ during the pandemic with Racing Point/Aston Martin, when he filled in for drivers when they were isolating with COVID. He then replaced Mick Schumacher at Haas for this season.

It is clear that Hulkenberg has faced challenges throughout his F1 career and the Audi project will be no different. he said, “It is a big challenge, no question about that,”. “Going to what will be Audi, what will be a German manufacturer, German driver, a lot of attention, a lot of expectation –  it’s not going to be an easy one.”

Despite not having a race win he has managed to have a long career, facing the prospect of following Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton of racing into his forties. On whether they gave him proof he could continue at the highest level, Hulkenberg replied: “It doesn’t make me feel anything. I don’t feel old or kind of that I’m close to my due date, I don’t look at that and I don’t think about that. I take it step by step, season by season.

Haas

Former Haas sponsor Uralkali has made a bid in the Dutch courts to seize the team’s assets – including cars and other equipment – over an outstanding payment. In June, the Swiss arbitration court hearing in June, it was ruled that Haas should refund Uralkali part of its sponsorship payment made for 2022, prior to its title deal being cancelled in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But while the court ruled the money should be returned it said that Haas could retain a $13m portion and return roughly around $9m./ But Haas argued it couldn’t repay the funds without breaking sanctions placed on Uralkali because of the invasion, which Russia still calls a special military operation.

The company says it did not view the sanctions issue as a justifiable reason for the delay.

Following Uralkali’s claims last month that Haas had missed the July payment deadline for the refund, it is understood that the Russian company decided to escalate the matter with courts in Holland this week.

It asked for Haas’s assets at the Dutch Grand Prix to be seized – with a provisional ruling being given in its favour. As a result, bailiffs and police visited the Haas team at Zandvoort on Thursday night to push forward with the matter and evaluate the team’s assets.

A statement from Haas said “Haas fully intends to pay to Uralkali all amounts due pursuant to the arbitration award, and there is no dispute over the amounts owed. Haas has been working with its lawyers to ensure payment will comply with all relevant US, EU, UK and Swiss sanctions and regulations. We will continue working with Uralkali in the coming days to resolve this matter definitively.”

Uralkali issued its own statement on Friday, welcoming the fact that Haas was working on sorting out the payment – but said it did not view the sanctions issue as a justifiable reason for the delay.

Uralkali spokesperson said, “We are aware that Dutch bailiffs, accompanied by police, last night arrived at the Haas paddock and took an inventory of all racing equipment and other property… There are not now and never have been any sanctions issues preventing Haas from fulfilling its obligations. Nevertheless, they have gone unfulfilled.”

Results Summary

Championship Standings