Rich Energy's Haas 'split' blamed on rogue individual

Rich Energy say the Tweet which claimed its sponsorship deal with Haas came from a "rogue" individual, who is being removed from the company.

The post sent on Wednesday evening cited Haas' poor performance in 2019 – particularly finishing behind George Russell's Williams in Austria – as the reason to drop the team's title sponsorship.

However, Haas team boss Guenther Steiner played firefighter on Thursday ahead of the British GP, insisting the Rich Energy logos would remain on the cars at Silverstone.

And the company went one further later in the day, admitting in the process that the Twitter account in Rich Energy's name is perhaps not under its control.

A statement read: "The shareholders who own the majority of Rich Energy would like to clarify certain statements that have been circulated in the media from an unauthorised source.

"We wholeheartedly believe in the Haas F1 Team , its performance, and the organisation as a whole and we are fully committed to the current sponsorship agreement in place. We also completely believe in the product of Formula One and the platform it offers our brand

"Clearly the rogue actions of one individual have caused great embarrassment. We are in the process of legally removing the individual from all executive responsibilities. They may speak for themselves but their views are not those of the company. The incident is very regrettable; we will not be making further comment on this commercially sensitive matter and will be concluding it behind closed doors.

"We wish to confirm our commitment to the Haas F1 Team, Formula One and to thank the Haas F1 Team for their support and patience whilst this matter is dealt with internally."

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