Rich Energy CEO William Storey has released a document claiming Haas has agreed to split, as he announced last week.
In a weird weekend which saw the internal wranglings of the British drinks company spill over into the American team, it all began when Storey was believed to be behind a tweet which said Rich Energy had cut ties with immediate effect.
That was quickly denied, however, with investors in the process of trying to oust the CEO, who then claimed they were staging a “coup” and were “cosy” with Red Bull and Whytes Bikes.
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After Sunday’s race though, during which Storey mocked Haas’ early double retirement by tweeting an image of himself in a milk float, he shared an image of what appeared to be confirmation that the team had agreed to terminate their deal.
Just to disavow people of lies from @HaasF1Team please see below. @rich_energy terminated the agreement as we said. The team have accepted contrary to their public denial.They were complicit in trying to oust CEO William Storey who even gave them a £35m personal guarantee #truth pic.twitter.com/RZodxJd4js
— Rich Energy (@rich_energy) July 14, 2019
Furthermore, it claims Haas will launch a legal claim for £35m in damages, the amount the four-year deal with Rich Energy was worth.
It also denies that the deal can be ended on performance grounds, the reason given by Storey in his original tweet, and cites the decision to remove the stag logo from the car in Canada after Rich Energy lost a copyright claim from Whytes Bikes.
Of course, there is no official word from Haas on the legitimacy of the document and clearly, this story has a long way still to go…