Santino Ferrucci, 2018

Banned F2 racer Ferrucci fired by Trident

Formula Two

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The Trident Formula 2 team has terminated its contract with driver Santino Ferrucci, who is banned from competing in the next four races.

Ferrucci received his ban after colliding with team mate Arjun Maini following the Silverstone F2 sprint race, failing to appear before the stewards and committing several other offences.

The team also accused the driver of failing to make the payments despite finding the funds to participate in two IndyCar races in Detroit.

“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,” said the team in a statement.

“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 previous accused Ferrucci and his father of “unsportsmanlike and above all uncivilised behavior” during the British Grand Prix weekend.

Ferrucci issued an apology for his behaviour on social media last week. “There was no intent, premeditation or any type of retaliation by my actions, only anger and frustration as this has been an horrific year,” he wrote.

“I have no excuse other than the fact that I am a 20-year-old Italian American with a deep passion for motorpsort, which is a very emotional sport. While there has been much provocation leading to my mental lapse, it is still not an excuse and I will make sure that this does not happen again.”

Ferrucci and Maini are both members of Haas’s young driver programme. The team is yet to decide how it will respond to last week’s incident.

“Haas F1 Team remains committed to gathering all of the facts and having in-person conversations with all the individuals involved in the situation,” it said in a statement.

“We are being diligent, but our priority is the last two races before the summer shutdown. While we want as 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.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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36 comments on “Banned F2 racer Ferrucci fired by Trident”

  1. I don’t think anyone’s going to miss this “talent”. Adios!

  2. I’m losing track of all his wrongdoings. As I recall:
    – Hit his teammate willfully/maliciously
    – Skipped meeting the stewards after the above
    – Dubious (racist?) tweets
    – Failed to meet payment obligations to the team

    Even top-of-the-line F1 stars like would be excoriated for exhibiting all of this behavior.

    1. You’ve missed driving with a phone in his hand………. and of course the jeans.

      1. Ah, driving in the pitlane on the phone, how could I forget that? @bernasaurus

        But what’s with the jeans that both @zimkazimka and you are referring to? That seems to be one reference I’m missing.

          1. @praxis – LOL, thank you.

            While the jeans look incredibly tacky, I must say they’re a good match for the wearer.

          2. Sergey Martyn
            18th July 2018, 15:22

            Closest resemblance to Cinnamon man I’ve ever seen!
            As for the jeans – my question is not to someone who bought and wears them, but to someone who designed and decided to manufacture them. Great minds think alike!

          3. @praxis man, there goes every single bit of sympathy towards him!

          4. LOL! How did he go from that to looking like a cast member from “The Jersey Shore”?

      2. @bernasaurus @phylyp I have admit that while some of his behaviors may – with the large dose of generosity and patience that being the dad of a 2yo gives me – be in some way undestood and excused (young, character, etc), I really can’t believe how a race driver can remotely think that driving a race car with while holding your phone could not be heavily sanctioned.

        It’s probably the most innocent in all the mess he made but really speaks volumes.

        Glad to hear all the parties used the heavy hand.

        1. His career is probably over, no sponsor is going to support his role, as they indirectly will agree on Calling while Driving. The ammount of traffic accidents you, as a sponsor, will be held responsible is killing the brand.

          Unless it’s a sponsor for a phone car handler…

          1. His career in Europe is definitely over, at least as far as open-wheel racing is concerned.

        2. The phone one is the one that gets me the most, why didn’t anyone say anything to him? Stroll & Vettel showed what can happen last year outside of racing laps, imagine if we had a field of F2 cars and drivers on their phones?

          1. Stroll & Vettel showed what can happen last year outside of racing laps

            @bernasaurus – Ha ha, that crazy incident, I still don’t understand why that happened! Its sheer ridiculousness definitely helped some of the conspiracy theories surrounding it.

          2. I think Santino might have burned up the necessary goodwill to be informed of the missteps he was making earlier in the season. Being given just enough latitude to give the team an excuse to fire him (though how missing sponsor payments didn’t result in this at the beginning remains a mystery).

        3. Very good distinction, @m-bagattini – while people could excuse some of his missteps, it is quite inexcusable for a motorsport driver to be caught driving and talking.

          2 yo kid, eh? Have fun, these years are the best, and they keep getting better.

    2. I literally see nothing wrong with any of the things you listed.

  3. Ah, the unfortunate jeans design guy…

  4. Thank God for that. He can do the laps in a regional NASCAR series for all I care.

  5. pastaman (@)
    18th July 2018, 13:03

    Good, I was always worried he would get a Haas F1 seat

  6. He will end up in Indycars, will get a podium on luck and will talk trash of F1…

  7. Wonder when we’ll hear from Haas that they have let him go as well? Soon, I hope.

  8. Bernie's Miniature Grandpa
    18th July 2018, 14:25

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  9. The behaviour was a red flag. But the lack of payments … this lad and his Dad seem a right pair.

  10. All this deplorable is missing is an Ed Hardy T-shirt.

  11. There is a degree of machismo in wearing a pair of trousers with a willy on the front.

    1. @bernasaurus – I don’t know if I should blame you for putting that visual in my head…

      … or myself for reopening the image to check, after reading your comment.

      1. I’m right there with you @phylyp, but now can’t unsee it @bernasaurus, gosh this guy. And of course he’s a MAGA too, sometimes …

  12. Josh (@canadianjosh)
    18th July 2018, 15:39

    What an idiot this kid is, the only thing I can see saving his single seater career is the fact that Gene Haas and Tony Stewart are pretty loyal towards their drivers. In my opinion he is a spoiled little rich kid with a personality I couldn’t be around for 30 seconds.

    1. I hope HAAS will drop him, however I just wanted to clarify that Tony Stewart doesn’t have anything to do with the F1 team.

      Stewart and HAAS only have a partnership in the NASCAR series.

  13. I have waited for weeks.

  14. I’m certain his mediocre talent had as much to do with this as anything. If you’re going to be this unprofessional, at least make sure you’re talented enough to get away with it.

    I hope this is the last we’ve seen of him, but to paraphrase an old video game, well-backed drivers are harder to squash than cockroaches…

  15. He’ll go to IndyCar and become their new “bad boy”

    1. @moshambles, that assumes that IndyCar wants to have him back in the first place – he did take part in one round, and it sounds like a lot of the other drivers there were complaining that he had a pretty severe attitude problem (Spencer Pigot was particularly critical after Ferrucci punted him into a wall).

  16. NASCAR, maybe. His politics. attitude and immature aggression may win him a following in that series. I hope IndyCar leaves him alone, he’s too reckless for an open wheel series.

Comments are closed.