Yahoo Autos Haas F1's Russian-Flag Livery Is Somehow OK Despite Ban on Russian Flag
The Russian flag is a tri-color design of three equal-size horizontal stripes: White on top, blue in the middle, red on the bottom. First flown on Russian ships in 1696, it's been replaced twice—most recently by the hammer-and-sickle design flown over the USSR—but officially re-instated as of 1991 with the formation of the post-Soviet Russian Federation.
It's also banned from appearing in any kind of "world championship" competition. A December 2020 ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport states that the Russian flag, national anthem, and even the name "Russia" cannot appear in the next two Olympics or at any championship competition for the next two years. It's a consequence of the World Anti-Doping Agency's case against Russia, which found that the country engaged in state-ordered tampering in an anti-doping testing laboratory in Moscow, with cover-ups dating back to the 2014 Winter Olympics.
All of this makes Haas F1's new 2021 livery, revealed today, a particular head-scratcher: Look at this car and tell me you don't see the Russian flag.
