Nikita Mazepin
The famous British sports publication BusinessF1 has named the young Russian pilot Nikita Mazepin (the son of Dmitry Mazepin, the main shareholder of Uralkali – one of the world's leading producers of potash fertilizers) as the new James Hunt for Formula 1.
“Hunt has done more than any other driver for the great commercial success of Formula 1. He looked like Tarzan – a superhero who took the sport to heights he couldn't even dream of. Now, 45 years later, a new star is born from among the bad guys – 21-year-old Nikita Mazepin. He is an attractive guy who likes girls too. In many ways, he is exactly the person that Formula 1 has been waiting for. Provided that Formula-1 will allow him to be himself, ”the newspaper writes.
At the end of a year, Nikita Mazepin found himself in the center of a scandal associated with a video that appeared on the athlete's Instagram account in which the racer touches his girlfriend by the chest. The video was soon deleted, and the girl participating in the video stated that she and Mazepin were friends, and what happened was a joke. After that, a petition appeared on the Change.org portal demanding to deprive the Russian of his place in Formula 1 because of his aggressiveness on the track, as well as “sexual predation” towards women.
Commenting on the December incident, the publication noted that “today in this sport there is a dominance of models of virtue, people who want their actions to be perceived as right, even if they do wrong.” These people, the newspaper notes, “can allow Mazepin to bloom, or they can strangle him in the bud, as they tried to do last year, when Nikita was caught fooling around with a couple of girls in his car.”
Mazepin was the last to laugh at critics when his popularity and worldwide recognition skyrocketed, BusinessF1 recalls. Prior to this incident, he was practically unknown, he was just one of a long line of riders. Now he is one of the most famous riders on the grid.
According to the publication, there is hope that Mazepin will retain his vivid image of a bad guy and become a cult hero of racing sports, like the famous Hunt many years ago.
Nikita Mazepin made his Formula 2000 racing debut in 2014 at the age of 16. In his first race, he competed with James Hunt's son Freddie and Niki Lauda's son Matthias. He won the podium that season and finished 10th in the championship.
