World war 3....

Except Nikitas dad is a Russian oligarch who like almost all the Russian oligarchs has strong ties with Putin. He only has a motorsport career because of his dad who has bought his way through every formula even though he is an average driver, an average driver with a dangerous history of intentionally ramming opponents into walls and the likes. He got his Haas drive because his dad bought into the team so Haas is part-owned by his dad. So ultimately his hands aren't exactly clean

 

Yeah we are going to have to put sanctions on China for that to have an impact. The internal Chinese economy isn't all that strong right now but their exports are ever-increasing so sanctions on them and Russia could work. The only problem is China have the world in such a reliance on them for so many things I don't see there being a consensus on putting sanctions on them

 

I believe from what I have seen and a conversation with a couple of Russian clients I have they are pretty divided. The population doesn't generally like going to war with Ukraine because they see them as their 'brothers and sisters but they feel that going to war to prevent NATO encroachment is justified and required to protect Russia's safety. Plus as many see not just Ukraine but all the ex USSR states (and a few others just outside the old USSR) as their brother and sisters there is a decent amount who would like to see them all come back under the fold again

 

I'm not sure governments can outright stop them. They can discourage and put hurdles in the way but if a private organisation wants to hold events in Russia it is very hard to stop them

 

The thing is the NATO membership of them and some other ex-USSR states only came back on the table because of Russia's Annexation of Crimea. They started wanting NATO membership as they saw this as the first step to a full-on Invasion that would start in Ukraine and likely spread out and they wanted that added protection that NATO membership would bring. Putin is just using the NATO thing as a way to justify it to his people.

 

He isn't an amazing driver and certainly shouldn't have got the seat over the likes of Ilott or even his countryman Shwartzman as those two and Schumacher and Tsunoda not only stood out more in that year's F2 championship but had better records prior to that as well. However he has through his career had plenty of top10, top5 and even top 3 championship finishes (just never 1st, not even in Karting) so I wouldn't say he was an awful driver, it's just F1 is perhaps a level too high for him.

 

Even if they do I don't think they can force them not to. Sports still went to South Africa during apartheid when governments were recommending against it. I believe F1 has in the past held talks about a race in North Korea and Iran is pitching them for a race from 2023. I believe American Team played sports against Cuba in Cuba as well despite the restrictions the US had on travel to Cuba. They can just make it hard such as banning direct travel connections to Russia but they would just go via a connection from somewhere else like Americans would travel to Mexico to goto Cuba