Why F1’s turbulent relationship with Russia is nothing new

Standing in sub-zero temperatures in Moscow’s Red Square, Narain Karthikeyan, Tiago Monteiro and Robert Doornbos welcomed the opportunity 
to try out some traditional ushanka fur hats.

It was February 2005, the last car launch for Jordan Grand Prix and the first outing for F1’s newest team owner, Russian-Canadian commodities trader Alex Shnaider. A military band played, the Kremlin’s walls and domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral providing backdrop.

Shnaider was gone 18 months later, the team rebranded as Midland, then sold to Dutch group Spyker. If that deal heralded the start of Russia’s involvement in contemporary F1, it also illustrated a degree of unpredictability.

How little we knew.

Vladimir Putin’s unwarranted war in Ukraine has caused untold human misery and made Russia a pariah state. Although inconsequential by comparison, F1 has terminated its relationship with both the country and the Mazepin family.

For a time it had looked promising.

When GP2 runner-up Vitaly Petrov arrived in F1 in 2010 it seemed he had the whole of Russia behind him. Petrov was supported by his father Alexander and associates including Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of Russian gas company Novatek, and Sergey Chemezov, CEO of state-owned military and defence tech company Rostec.
 Both Mikhelson and Chemezov are friends with Putin. Chemezov is
 a former KGB colleague…

The Jordan EJ15 in Red Square

Photo by: Gareth Bumstead / Motorsport Images

During Petrov’s first season it was announced that Russia would join the F1 calendar from 2014 onwards, the PR machine going into overdrive when Putin was invited to test a Renault in St Petersburg.

Petrov managed to score a podium finish in Melbourne in 2011, but his season fell away and a subsequent move to Caterham only lasted a year. By the time the inaugural Russian Grand Prix in Sochi was held, Petrov was out of F1. Careers ending are one thing, quite another was the assassination of Alexander Petrov in October 2020.

While the Petrovs were making a splash in the F1 paddock, other Russians began making moves in a similar direction.

I first met Marussia at the 2010 Frankfurt Motor Show, later introducing them to Jim Wright at Virgin Racing in a deal which asked the Russian company to pay Cosworth’s engine bills.

Russia’s GP lasted eight seasons, even if the Kremlin’s enthusiasm appeared to wane, while Daniil Kvyat acquitted himself well as a driver but never quite broke through

Owner Andrei Cheglakov and Marussia boss Nikolai Fomenko so enjoyed the opportunity to use F1 as a marketing platform that they bought the team and sponsored drivers in lower formulae, most notably Robert Wickens when he won the 2011 Formula Renault 3.5 championship.

Meanwhile, Marussia’s sportscar ambitions stalled. Cosworth found the car too small to accommodate an engine with the prerequisite horsepower. That was the least of Marussia’s problems. By 2014 the project was dead, and so too the F1 programme.

Russia’s GP lasted eight seasons, even if the Kremlin’s enthusiasm appeared to wane, while Daniil Kvyat acquitted himself well as a driver but never quite broke through.

Vitaly Petrov, Lotus Renault GP celebrates his third position on the podium

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

But none of it matters. Formula 1 is finished with Russia. 

During a private tour of the Kremlin Museum a few years back, my guide – Anna – showed me the Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell. The cannon, with the largest calibre in the world, had never fired a shot, thanks in part to requiring a one-ton cannon ball. The bronze bell had never been rung, cracking due to heat stress shortly after being cast.

“That’s Russia,” she said. “We build the biggest cannon that never fired and the biggest bell that never rang. We’re good at big ideas but very bad at execution.”

An understatement of global proportions.