The inside story of F1 2019's most bizarre sponsor saga

The saga of William Storey and Rich Energy continues to evolve at a fast pace, with each new twist taking the story in another direction.

On Thursday, the deadline imposed by a judge for Rich Energy to cease using the now infamous stag logo following the copyright case involving Whyte Bikes, a subtly revised version appeared on the company's website and Twitter feed, with the horns no longer linked.

But the most extraordinary development had come on Tuesday. In dispute with shareholders, and fighting the prospect of being ousted as Rich Energy CEO, Storey jumped before he was pushed. He sold his shares to a third party via an organisation that specialises in baling out directors looking for an escape route from a difficult situation.

Part of that process involves companies changing their names, and in this case Rich Energy UK has become Lightning Volt. The future of the actual Rich Energy brand, and its sponsorship deal with Haas, remains in question.

It's hard not to feel sorry for Gene Haas and Gunther Steiner, who have found themselves caught up in a difficult situation at a time when they have enough problems to deal with in terms of the team's on-track performance.

On the other hand, anyone who looked into the background of Rich Energy and Storey when they first appeared on the F1 radar last year knew there were questions to be asked, especially given the apparent lack of assets attributed to Rich Energy UK in official documents.

Among those who harboured doubts was the judge who was involved with the Force India administration process last summer, who did not view Storey as a viable future owner of the team that was eventually re-born under Lawrence Stroll's stewardship as Racing Point.

It was after that rebuke that Storey turned his attention to a sponsorship deal. He is a colourful personality and clever salesman, and was able to drop the names of associates or potential backers - such as West Ham owner and media mogul David Sullivan - which helped to give his plans for Rich Energy some credibility.

With Bernie Ecclestone making an introduction, he began negotiations with Williams, which culminated in Storey flying to last year's US Grand Prix as a guest of the team.

He stayed in an upmarket hotel, visited the garage, was shown around the grid by Claire Williams, and had his picture taken with the drivers. It was hardly a secret that a deal was set to be agreed. Indeed, it was due to signed over dinner in Austin in the evening after the race.

Except Storey didn't show up. Right after the race he had visited the Haas hospitality unit, where Steiner greeted him and ushered him in with a, 'Nice to meet you'. It was here that Storey concluded negotiations that had been going on in parallel with his Williams discussions.

The F1 paddock is a small world, and the way Storey conducted his business led to a few eyebrows being raised

Just three days later, Haas, a team that had previously made it clear that it was in F1 to promote its owner's machine tool brand and didn't want to compromise on that aim, announced a title sponsorship deal.

Intriguingly, a letter from Haas's lawyer - released on Twitter by Storey last week - dated the start of the contract as October 21, the Sunday of the Austin race. This was the very day that Claire Williams and her colleagues were left waiting in a restaurant to sign such a deal.

The word on the street was the Haas deal was for less than had been agreed with Williams. Last week the lawyer's letter provided some specific numbers for upcoming seasons: the team is due to be paid £14m in 2020, and £15m in '21.

F1 team marketing folk are always pitching for the same sponsorship deals, trying to beat each other to the big prize, and some would argue that all is fair in love and war.

But the paddock is a small world, and the way Storey conducted his business - and in the process left Williams and Ecclestone frustrated - led to a few eyebrows being raised.

When Steiner was asked just after the announcement if Haas had done its due diligence on Storey and Rich Energy, he was adamant that the team had done so, and that the process had started some time before the Austin meeting.

Title sponsorship was a big commitment from Haas. The Rich Energy name would be listed alongside that of the team in all FIA documents and so on, so any stumble in the deal between October and the start of the 2019 season would be embarrassing. But there was none, and after a London launch event the team went into the season in full black and gold livery.

Indeed, the Rich Energy name appearing on an F1 car gave the company and Storey a credibility boost, and helped him to attract new investors.

But things then began to unravel. In May, a longstanding copyright claim from Whyte Bikes regarding Rich Energy's stag logo reached the Business and Property Court of the High Court of Justice.

Whyte's parent company ATB Sales took action against Rich Energy, Storey and logo designer Staxoweb - Storey's friend Sean Kelly. To the surprise of no one who saw the two logos printed side-by-side, Whyte won the case.

More damagingly for Storey, Judge Melissa Clarke took him to pieces in her written judgement.

"I found both Mr Storey and Mr Kelly to be poor witnesses," she wrote. "Mr Storey provided different and inconsistent accounts of the development of [the Rich Energy logo], which also conflicted to a large extent with the evidence of Mr Kelly.

"He often did not answer questions directly, preferring to make speeches about his vision for his business or alternatively seeking to evade questions by speaking in generalities or in the third person plural. He only answered several questions when I intervened. He had a tendency to make impressive statements, which on further investigation or consideration were not quite what they seemed."

"I do not accept either Mr Storey or Mr Kelly as credible or reliable witnesses and I treat all of their evidence with a high degree of caution" Judge Clarke

She went on to give specific examples, the first of which went right to the core of Storey's claims about his business.

"When Mr Wyand [for Whyte] in cross-examination tried to understand his evidence about the sales figures of Rich Energy drinks, and put to him that he had been quoted in the press in February 2019 as saying that the First Defendant [Rich Energy] had produced 90 million cans, Mr Storey explained that it had produced 90 million cans, but had not yet filled and sold them.

"He said he would have to check the figures, but in 2018 he thought the First Defendant had filled and sold 'circa 3 million cans' of Rich Energy drink."

This was an extraordinary revelation. You didn't need to be an accountant to equate the potential profits from 3 million cans with the size of an F1 sponsorship deal, even allowing for growth into 2019. And where were those 87 million empty cans?

Judge Clarke also punched a hole in Storey's claim about how the brand got its name, pointing out that it was founded in Croatia in 2013, and that the connection with his home town of Richmond was just a co-incidence.

Damningly, she wrote: "I am satisfied that some of Mr Storey's evidence was incorrect or misleading and that he was involved in the manufacture of documents during the course of litigation to provide additional support for the Defendants' case." She later added: "I do not accept either Mr Storey or Mr Kelly as credible or reliable witnesses and I treat all of their evidence with a high degree of caution."

This was a legal document, and anyone who had given Storey and Rich Energy the benefit of the doubt now had to question the long-term viability of the Haas arrangement. At the Canadian GP, the stag logo was removed from the cars.

Around this time, Storey was trying to borrow £10million, apparently suggesting either that he needed funding to pay for some cans, or that he wanted to buy out some investors.

But there was more to come on the legal front. On June 27, Judge Clarke issued a follow-up in the form of a court order that prevented an appeal and confirmed that Rich Energy could not use the stag logo after July 18.

Whyte's legal costs of £35,416 had to paid before July 11, while Storey was required to provide full financial information about his company - including details of his dealings with Haas - by August 1.

All of this set a few alarm bells ringing for the investors behind the Rich Energy project, who had backed Storey's vision with real money, and who now understandably had concerns about how it was being spent. Among them was Neville Weston, who explained the situation at Silverstone last weekend.

"Originally I had a 2% share after putting a small amount of money into the Rich Energy UK company," he said. "I was introduced by a friend - it was a little network of people that got involved, and came along for the ride. I got involved in a bigger way when the Haas title sponsorship happened. We were on the side of the car, and that's why I did it, I could see the potential of the brand.

"And then we started to discover some, let's call them operational weaknesses, from the soon to be former CEO of the company. You started to get a clue that something was not quite right here, you started to follow a process, to make sure of what was going on. We got to that point. We've been telling William: 'You have to step down, this is a mess'.

"He had agreed to that originally. We were on a shareholder call to follow through with that. [But] he avoided the call, and posted that 'I'm terminating the contract' tweet when we were on the call. And he went social media crazy. We offered him an amicable solution, and he didn't take it - he went rogue."

News of Storey voluntarily departing moved the goalposts

Storey's explosive tweet, posted late on July 10, claimed that he had terminated the Haas deal due to "poor performance" from the team. Speaking to The Sun, he later compared the car to a milk float running at the back of the grid.

The Rich Energy shareholders were shell-shocked, not least because the contract with Haas makes no mention of performance. They were left scrambling to assure the team that Storey was acting independently, and that they wanted the deal to continue.

Over the Silverstone weekend, Storey continued to control the Rich Energy Twitter feed, and he used it to blast both Haas and his own shareholders and their attempt at what he called a "palace coup". At one stage he even claimed that he had transferred the rights to the energy drink to another company.

At this stage, Whyte Bikes had pointed out that its £35,416 legal costs had not been paid by July 11, as required by Judge Clarke, and said that it would take the necessary action to recover those funds.

The shareholders continued to work away to resolve the situation and wrestle control from Storey, and they made it clear that they saw a future for Rich Energy as a brand, as well as the Haas deal.

"We do see the potential of this product," Weston said at Silverstone. "It's a very intriguing brand. William's approach has been, 'Any publicity is good publicity', so he likes to create a stir. It has put us on the map, as it were, but what we've had to do is clear up the mess of the operations side and make it deliver on what it's supposed to be.

"The shareholders are a bunch of people who have been successful in their own right in other industries. They're grown up people, and they're a bit irritated that they've been put into this mess. We trusted somebody, and he completely messed us around, and we have to come in and deal with it."

Tuesday's news of Storey voluntarily departing moved the goalposts. He announced on Twitter that he had "sold his majority stake in the legal entity of Rich Energy Ltd to a third party". "This was in disgust at conduct of duplicitous minority stakeholders," he continued before wryly adding that like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he "will be back!"

Official documents showed that his shareholding had been transferred to one Martin Kell, and Rich Energy had become Lightning Volt.

Kell has been involved in similar scenarios with a number of other companies where the original director/owner pulls out. He takes over the shareholding, and the company is instantly given a "generic" new name that bears no relation to the original - examples include Silver Tree, Silver Pot, Lead Kite and Empire Tree. While legally it remains the same entity, a name change obviously creates some confusion.

The transfer to Kell was conducted via a company called the BDG Group, which describes itself as the "UK's leading unlicensed Insolvency Practitioner". Explaining how it works, its website states: "We will acquire your company and you can resign and let us handle everything from that point on.

"Our team of lawyers, accountants and specialist negotiators will deal with everything, from preparing financial reports and negotiating with your creditors, to attending any necessary insolvency meetings. We will present your former business and your role in it, to all your stakeholders in the most favourable light possible."

So rather than fight to retain his CEO role, Storey has opted for this alternative route. Where this action leaves the other shareholders remains to be seen, with a spokesmen noting that they "are currently pursuing the legal options ahead of them and will not comment any further until the situation is rectified".

"We have done everything to the book, so actually it gives us a good reputation, because we didn't react, because we cannot" Gunther Steiner

One added complication is that the shareholdings posted at Companies House - and the basis of the publicly announced transfer of Storey's 64% to Kell - apparently do not reflect the current percentages as the other shareholders understand it, because the relevant paperwork that covers more recent share dealings had not been filed in a timely manner.

In other words, the remaining shareholders believe that Storey did not own 64% at the time of that transfer.

Haas now finds itself in an awkward situation, working with the shareholders to sort things out.

"The team is a class act," said Weston last weekend. "They just inherited a whole load of problems caused by our company. They've been brilliant - they fully support what's going on."

Haas has played it straight. It has said little and tried to stay clear of any controversy. Steiner insists that the team's reputation has not been damaged by the affair.

"What have we done wrong?" he said, when asked if the team's image had suffered. "How can you damage something if we don't do anything wrong?

"There is a clear line. They pay us for advertising, and we do our job, so therefore I don't think we are damaged as a team, because we have not done anything wrong. We have done everything to the book, so actually it gives us a good reputation, because we didn't react, because we cannot.

"We are in a good position because we showed the world even with a controversy outside of us we are not doing things which we shouldn't be doing. We work professionally, and keep out of things which we cannot control - and are not entitled to control, by the way. We just go along and what happens happens, and then we deal with them.

"There are a lot of positive people who think we are doing a great job, because it's a situation which is very unusual, and how we behave, is very professional. We got a lot of compliments even if you think we're a bunch of you know whats."