Günther Steiner and his Haas F1 team played a strange joke on Nikita Mazespin by presenting him with a twist to highlight his antics on the track, which regularly end in twists.
Maze-spin has a website that records his indiscretions on the track in his Formula 1 rookie season, hampered by having to drive the worst car on the grid, one that last year’s veterans – Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen – labeled as evil.
On the Styria Grand Prix weekend, Steiner thought it was funny to give the Russian youngster the ‘present’ for their social media channels and to say in it: “There is a small present for you so that you can keep refreshing… First of all it is better than turning the car! “
Steiner was later asked by reporters to explain the tasteless gift to Mazepin, stating, “I think he’s got used to social media storms!
“He’s been on the wrong side in places, and in the end social media can be good or bad for you. It was an idea in the team to do this to him and then we did it.
“It was decided to be a little funny. We can be funny here too – everything on social media about Nikita is about bad things, so there can be good things too, try to use it to your advantage and escape the naysayers.
“He wasn’t feeling uncomfortable, he was pretty happy. You know there is a happy Nikita Mazepin too. He’s not that unhappy boy you all think he is, this wretched young man, he has a good sense of humor, ”Steiner emphasized.
Indeed, Mazepin burst out laughing, initially confused, as the penny dropped. Fortunately, his humor kicked in when he could have hit Steiner with: “If you hadn’t given me such a shitty car, maybe my teammate and I wouldn’t risk our lives every time we jumped in?”
While Mazepin has done himself a disservice for his vulgar social media antics, which made him the most hated Formula 1 class from day one of his top flight career, he brings the beleaguered American – through his billionaire father Uralakli’s company – team a huge amount of money so that they can survive.
With that in mind, it is the mindset of someone who condones the silly prank who does not come into contact with the reality of his driver, no matter how graciously he accepted the “gift”, it was cruel to Mazepin under the circumstances.
Moreover, antics like this just make ammunition for those who believe Steiner is simply the current F1 village idiot left to his own devices by Gene Haas, destroying the potential of an American team in the process.
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