Formula One enjoyed a second mini summer break following the cancelation of the 2022 Russian GP. In the two weeks before the Singapore race the F1 was circus was scheduled to return to Sochi, Russia’s black sea resort and home to a previous winter Olympics.

The Russian GP was cancelled following international outrage and sanctions against the former Soviet state following its invasion of Ukraine.

There were a number of ramifications for F1 despite the cancellation of the Sochi race. Haas title sponsor Uralkali, a Russian energy company, was ditched by the teams American owner together with the son of Uralkali boss Russian driver Nikita Mazepin.

Ferrari kick out Russian Sponsor

Ferrari were impacted too by the removal of all things Russian from Formula One. Their long standing sponsor Kaspersky was removed from the car and team wear.

Kaspersky was founded in 1997 based on a collection of antivirus modules built by Eugene Kaspersky, a cybersecurity expert and the company’s CEO since 2007. 

The Russian cyber business claim, “We are now the world’s largest privately-owned cybersecurity company, committed to fighting cybercrime whilst maintaining the highest standards of professional integrity and transparency.”

Yet of course in Russia, nothing is truly private. The long arm of the state races wherever it wishes.

Ferrari replacement is Romanian

Ironically Ferrari recently replaced Kaspersky with a company called Bitdefender who are an ex Soviet state Romanian cybersecurity company. Roania are one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine in their current battle with Russia.

Ferrari states on its website, “Bitdefender is committed to defending organisations and individuals around the globe against cyberattacks to transform and improve their digital experience.”

However, not long after Bitdefender’s appointment by Ferrari the Italian media are now reporting that the Italian racing team have been the victims of a cyber attack in the past few days.

Ferrari hacked

Italy’s Autosprint are reporting internal documents from Ferrari servers have been stolen by an unnamed ransomeware group who claim to have taken possession of financial spreadsheets along with a total of 7 Gigabytes of other documents.

Autosprint have published a screenshot of the alleged hack and which shows a document marked ‘confidential’.

Presumably the hackers have contacted Autosprint because publicity is the oxygen they seek when hacking.

Ferrari though insist, “We are aware that some media have indicated that there has been a disclosure of information and that some documents are available online.

“Ferrari has no evidence of ransomware or a breach of its systems and reports that there have been no disruptions to operations.

“The company is working to identify the origin of the event and will implement all necessary initiatives.”

What was stolen?

It is natural for company’s hacked to deny the event to prevent a loss of confidence in their activities.

Yet the timeline coincidence between the appointment of a Romanian cybersecurity business to replace their Russian counterpart will be lost on no one and doesn’t even require a tin foil hat.

One thing is for certain, the documents stolen are unlikely to contain the Ferrari race strategy handbook.

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Some start from Nico Hulkenberg at our last lights out in Japan 🤩#JapaneseGP #F1 @HulkHulkenberg pic.twitter.com/g6tXJTQsLj

— Formula 1 (@F1) October 4, 2022