Haas’ American development driver, Santino Ferrucci, has been sacked by his Formula 2 team after deliberately crashing into his teammate on the cool down lap of a race earlier this month.
Ferrucci was handed a four-race ban after intentionally hitting the rear of fellow Haas junior Arjun Maini’s car after the F2 sprint race which preceded the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 8. He was later disqualified from that race result and accumulated 66,000 Euros of fines for separate incidents, including holding a mobile phone as he drove from the F2 paddock to the grid.
At the time, Trident criticised the Connecticut native in a series of remarkable tweets, accusing Ferrucci and his father of subjecting Maini and his family to “unsportsmanlike and above all uncivilised” behaviour throughout the weekend. In the days following the race it also emerged that Ferrucci had been blocked from running “Make America Great Again” — the political slogan of U.S. president Donald Tump — on the side of his car for the race weekend.
Ferrucci, who made his IndyCar debut earlier this year at a one-off appearance for Dayle Coyne Racing in Detroit, later apologised for his actions during the weekend and his clash with Maini, saying “I have no excuse other than the fact I am a 20-year-old Italian American with a deep passion for motorsport, which is a very emotional sport.”
While Haas is yet to declare its official position on Ferrucci’s future with the team, Trident has confirmed its own. On Wednesday it released a statement announcing a split from the American driver which revealed yet another layer to the story surrounding Ferrucci’s payments — or lack thereof — to the team so far this year.
The statement read: “Trident Motorsport informs to have communicated to Santino Ferrucci and to its guarantor, a company represented by Mr. Michael Ferrucci, the termination of the contract with the Team. This decision was motivated by the events — which are now of public domain — occurred at Silverstone, as well as by the serious breach of Driver’s payment obligations.
“Since the beginning of the championship, the Driver justified its payments’ default with alleged failure by his sponsors to fulfil their obligations. It seems weird that, despite such kind of issues, Santino Ferrucci had the resources needed to enter the Detroit INDY race from June 1st to 3rd while, at the same time, he was not honouring his agreement with Trident Motorsport.
“Trident gave mandate to its lawyers in order to activate all the procedures needed to fully recover its credits towards the driver.”
Haas told ESPN in response to the situation: “Haas F1 Team remains committed to gathering all of the facts and having in-person conversations with all the individuals involved in the situation.
“We are being diligent, but our priority is the last two races before the summer shutdown. While we want a better understanding of everything that took place, we aren’t in a hurry because the German and Hungarian Grands Prix are, quite frankly, more important.”