[imagesource:here]

Netflix’s Drive to Survive is great in that it tells the stories of drivers you may otherwise not have known about.

All of a sudden, you’re paying attention to who comes in eighth, rather than just the podium finishes.

It also shines a light on people like Nikita Mazepin, for example, and the ridiculous story of how his dad essentially bought him a spot on the track when he sponsored Haas via his company, Uralkali.

Dmitry Mazepin, Nikita’s billionaire father, is back in the news after his luxury yacht, Aldabra, vanished into thin air. It had been seized under EU sanctions but has now disappeared from a port on the Italian island of Sardinia.

The Guardian reports:

The vessel, said to be worth between €700,000 (£605,000) and €1m, was docked at Olbia port and seized in March when Mazepin was named on the sanctions list in the weeks following the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It remained there until June, when the yacht disappeared hours before it was officially confirmed as belonging to Mazepin.

“Mazepin knew he was on the list but managed to make the most of the period during which we were working to establish that the boat belonged to him, as we had to investigate the chain of ownership,” said a source at Sardinia’s financial police squad. “We were in the process of confirming [the ownership] when it was taken away.”

It’s believed that Mazepin employed a foreign company to move the yacht, which then hired a Sardinian captain.

The last time the yacht was seen, it was making a stopover in Tunisia.

The ANC doesn’t have a problem with sanctioned Russians popping in at Cape Town Harbour so keep an eye out for Aldabra

Nikita, who failed to score a single point while at Haas, recently saw fit to dish out advice to the likes of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.

Their dads didn’t buy their spots, pal. Maybe sit this one out.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NIKITA (@nikita_mazepin)

[source:guardian]