The Haas F1 team has reconfirmed that Nikita Mazepin will partner Mick Schumacher in the 2021 season. This reconfirmation comes after it concluded its internal investigation into the Mazepin's recent behaviour which included a video that was posted on his social media in which his behaviour towards a girl was described as "abhorrent" by the team. The team had been conducting an investigation against Mazepin soon after he was announced to be part of the team just before the season-ending race at Abu Dhabi. "Haas F1 Team would like to reaffirm that Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher will form its driver lineup for the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship," said the team.
Nikita Mazepin has driven an F1 car and topped the timesheets in Barcelona's second in-season test day in May 2019 driving for Mercedes
"As per the team's previous statement regarding the actions of Nikita Mazepin (9 December) - this matter has now been dealt with internally and no further comment shall be made," the statement added. In the wake of the controversy, Mazepin moved to apologise but strangely didn't apologise to the girl. Soon after, the girl posted on Instagram claiming that the post was an "internal joke" between Mazepin and her and vouched for his character.
At the time Guenther Steiner, the Haas team principal said," We take it very seriously, as you saw with what we sent out [in the statement]. "I just want to reinforce that, that we will deal with it.
"I'm not going into detail on what we'll do and how we'll do it, but we take it seriously, and we will work to sort this out, what happened We had a race weekend going on, as you know, so I didn't focus on that one," he said.
Romain Grosjean has been a part of the Haas F1 Team since its debut in 2016
"That will be the job for the coming week when I'm back in the office at home. So I'm travelling, and then we will deal with that," he added.
There have been calls to axe him from the team as he has shown little remorse couple with the fact that he had behavioural issues even in F2. The problem for Haas is that his father Dimitri Mazepin is a billionaire and he commands a lot of financial might which will be crucial to the team's future.
