The bizarre F1 sponsor controversy that embarrassed Haas
- Posted by hudson on Aug 27, 2024
Police in the paddock on the eve of a race weekend starting, an F1 team not being allowed to transport its cars to the next race, and a hurried multi-million dollar payment to make it all go away - yep, we've definitely had F1's weirdest controversy of 2024.
Justified legal action from former title sponsor Uralkali meant Haas had an unexpectedly dramatic and stressful Dutch GP off-track, which began when bailiffs turned up at its garages on Thursday night to assess the value of its equipment, which could have been impounded.
This didn't come to pass and Haas was allowed to race at Zandvoort undisturbed - but it was then forced to keep everything at the track until much later than planned after the race on Sunday night, with all its race equipment including the two cars staying into Monday.
That has compromised its Italian GP preparations but Haas at least escaped in time to get to Monza and set up before the on-track action begins, but even like this it was still an embarrassing o