Haas F1 Driver Nikita Mazepin Accused Of Sexual Assault By Fans

UPDATE 12/9/20 12:47PM PST: Nikita Mazepin has issued a public apology and Andrea D’lVal (the woman in the video) has released a statement. Nikita’s apology and D’lVal’s statement are now included in the story below.

UPDATE 12/9/20 2:24 AM PST: The Haas F1 Team released a statement on Twitter regarding the video that has circulated online. It states the following:

“Haas F1 Team does not condone the behavior of Nikita Mazepin in the video recently posted on his social media. Additionally, the very fact that the video was posted on social media is also abhorrent to Haas F1 Team. The matter is being dealt with internally and no further comment shall be made at this time.”

Original story continues below

Back on November 30th the Haas F1 Team announced that their 2021 driver line up would consist of Mick Schumacher, son of Michael Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, son of Russian billionaire Dmitry Mazepin.

Nikita may not have been a household name among casual racing fans but he does have quite a reputation. In 2016 Mazepin was banned for one race after punching Callum Ilott in the face after a practice session in the very first F3 race of that season.

In 2019 Nikita was deemed “wholly at fault” for causing a hard crash during an F2 race in Sochi which resulted in himself and fellow driver Nobuharu Matsushita to be hospitalized. The FIA handed down a 15 grid penalty for the next race and officially accused Mazepin for having “a total lack of due care for his fellow drivers.”

Then just a few days ago Nikita got not one, but two 5 second penalties in the last F2 race of the season. The first penalty was for running Yuki Tsunoda off track and forcing him into the pit lane. The second penalty was due to Mazepin hindering Felipe Drugovich on the pit straight, causing Drugovich to get on the brakes hard to avoid a collision.

And all of the above is just for his antics on the track. Off the track seems to be a completely different, and allegedly much worse story.

It must be said that the following instances that will be detailed are not 100% verified and are allegations based on screenshots and video from social media.

Late last night the hashtag #WeSayNoToMazepin started to trend on Twitter. Exploring the trend will see Twitter users discussing Mazepin’s bad behavior on track which I mentioned above.

However, it starts to get much worse as screenshots surfaced of interactions between Nikita and female fans. In one screenshot it appears that Mazepin offers to invite a female fan to a race after he sees her photo. In another screenshot he seems to be pushing another female fan to send him a nude picture; stating that if she doesn’t show him her body there is “nothing to earn”. The screenshots can be viewed by clicking the thumbnails below. Images are NSFW due to language.

Another screenshot surfaced of a comment he left on George Russell’s Instagram page suggesting that Russell is gay and that Mazepin intends to out him. With the comment reading “I have a secret about you mate that people might call a coming out”.

Though, perhaps the most shocking thing is a now deleted story posted to Mazepin’s personal Instagram account that shows him groping a young woman in the backseat of a car while someone else is driving.

Despite the fact that Nikita deleted the video, this is the internet and it was captured by others and has since spread on Twitter and Reddit.

WARNING: The video can be viewed at this link but it is very NSFW even without sound and can be triggering.

In the version of the video that has spread, the woman’s face and username has been blurred. The video has no sound either, so it is hard to tell exactly what is happening.

UPDATE 12/9/20: The woman in the video is Andrea D’lVal who is labeled as a fashion model on Instagram.

Angry fans who are circulating the video have suggested that the woman is intoxicated and is not in complete control of herself, thus accusing Nikita of taking advantage of her. Though, without any further context or audio it is hard to tell if that is how things transpired.

UPDATE 12/9/20: A new version of the video has surfaced that is unblurred and with audio. In the unblurred version of the video, it seems that D’lVal is going along with what Nikita was doing. 

The unblurred video with audio can be seen at this link. WARNING the video at the link is NSFW and may trigger some people.

She also released a statement on her Instagram story stating that she and Nikita have been “good friends for a long time” and that “nothing from that video was serious at all”.

She went on to say “We trust each other so much and this was a silly way of joking between us.” She then went on to suggest that she was the one who posted the video to Nikita’s story as an “internal joke”.

Click on the thumbnail above for a screenshot of her IG story statement.

Original story continues below.

Even if the woman gave Nikita full consent, it is definitely not the kind of thing an F1 driver should be posting to their Instagram.

It should be said that while these screenshots and the video all look pretty damning, it is still possible that the screenshots could have been faked and the video could have been taken out of context.

Currently, as far as we can tell the woman in the video has not come forward and is still unidentified as of the publishing of this article. The women in the screenshots have not come forward either so right now all of this has to be considered allegations based on unverified images.

F1 fans are furious that Mazepin will be getting a seat at Haas for 2021 while a driver like Sergio Perez is still hunting for a seat despite winning the Sakhir GP in grand fashion.

It has been strongly suggested by fans and the media that Nikita Mazepin has only advanced this far in motorsports because of his wealthy background. His father was actually in the running to buy Force India (now Racing Point) before Lawrence Stroll eventually bought a stake in the team.

It has also been rumored that as part of the deal for signing Nikita, his father Dmitry will have some say over team operations when it comes to his son. There is nothing concrete to back those claims but its easy to see why some may suspect it.

A change.org petition has been started by furious fans asking for the FIA to step in and ban Nikita from F1 for violating the “second point of Appendix B of the International Sporting Code.”

Specifically the part that states “not to cause by words, actions or writings, damage to the standing and/or reputation of, or lost to, the FIA, its bodies, its members or its management, and more generally on the interested of motorsport and on the values defended by the FIA”.

In a nutshell the FIA is saying “don’t act like a garbage person while you drive in one of our sanctioned series.”

As of the writing of this article the petition has 4,351 signatures. When we started writing this article the petition had just over 2,400 signatures. It has only taken about an hour to write this piece.

At the time of publishing this article neither Nikita, Haas F1 Team, Formula 1, of the FIA have made a statement regarding the recent video or screenshots that are currently circulating on social media.

UPDATE 12/9/20: The Haas F1 Team has released a statement (seen at the top of this article) which condemns Nikita’s actions in the video with Andrea D’IVal. Nikita has also posted an apology on twitter. Click the thumbnail below to see Nikita’s apology.

Though, if this outcry continues to grow it may get to a point where one of the interested parties will be forced to respond.

If and when that happens we will be sure to write an update on the situation.

In the meantime we want to know what all of you think. Do you think Nikita Mazepin should be banned from F1? Or do you think people are over reacting? Share your opinions in the comments below or tweet to us at @MotorworldHype.