F1: Mazepin suing Canada, admits F1 return ‘looks difficult’ (2nd Update)

(GMM) Nikita Mazepin says he will continue to take legal action until he is fully able to return to Formula 1.

The 24-year-old and his sponsor Uralkali were expelled from Haas and Formula 1 at the outset of the Ukraine conflict, with the FIA now imposing restrictions on any Russian driver wanting to race.

“I really hope I will have the opportunity to return to Formula 1, but today it looks quite difficult,” Mazepin told Russian outlets including Tass news agency.

“If sanctions are lifted and things are not as they are now, then I am ready. I have a lot of legal colleagues who are working to give me the opportunity to return to the sport, but at the moment there is no great success.”

On March 2, Mazepin recently won a case in Europe’s court of justice.

“Unfortunately, on March 10, new sanctions were introduced,” he revealed. “So it turns out that we need to sue again.”

It also emerged in the last few days that Mazepin is suing Canada’s foreign minister for the right to race in the country.

“We’re working on the European Union, Great Britain, Canada. If I’m not mistaken, I am even under sanctions in Montenegro. I’ve never been there and there are no races there,” the Russian said.

“You know, there is a contagious effect with sanctions – someone introduces it, others introduce it too. So we are trying to justify with lawyers that this should not happen to athletes.”

(GMM) Nikita Mazepin is taking his fight for the right to return to Formula 1 to Canada.

Recently, having been ousted by Haas and then restricted by the FIA at the outset of the Ukraine conflict, the Russian driver took his case to Europe’s court of justice – and won.

The court said Mazepin, whose father and backer Dmitry was directly named in western sanctions, can now return to Europe to “negotiate his employment as a professional Formula 1 driver”.

CTV News now reports that the 24-year-old driver is taking the Canadian government to Federal Court so that foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly removes him from the sanctions list.

Nikita himself is named on the Canadian sanctions list, and therefore he cannot race in the country.

On the court’s notice of application filing, Mazepin is described as a “young sportsman and professional motorsport driver who is in no way involved in the aggression suffered by Ukraine”.

However, it is claimed the sanctions “catastrophically reduce” his ability to be considered by F1 teams as the sport races each year in Montreal.

The filings say that if Mazepin is blocked from racing in Formula 1 in 2024, it will then be “extremely difficult, if not impossible, for him to be recruited again as an F1 driver or as a driver in other motorsport championships”.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Former Russian F1 driver Nikita Mazepin is taking Canada to court, saying sanctions imposed against him following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine are unfairly hurting his career a right to work issue.

Nikita Mazepin, a former Formula One driver, wants the Federal Court to direct Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to take immediate steps to remove him from the Canadian sanctions list.

He says at the very least, Joly should make a decision on his application to be taken off the list and tell him the result within five days.

Mazepin is also asking the court to order interim relief that would allow him to take part in racing activities in Canada.

The driver and his father, businessman Dmitry Mazepin, were among 14 people considered to be oligarchs, family members or close associates of the Russian regime who were added to Canada’s sanctions roster on the same day last May.