Racing with Rich Energy

How a Rogue Sponsor Took Formula One for a Ride

By: Elizabeth Blackstock, Alanis King

Narrated by: Linda Jones

Formula One has long maintained a glitzy aura that masks dark and strange goings-on in the background. But with the 2019 season came a force louder than Formula One could dream of muffling: William Storey, the founder of British energy drink startup Rich Energy.

Storey became a multimillion-dollar sponsor of the Haas Formula One team a year after records showed Rich Energy having a mere $770 in the bank. He equated his doubters to moon-landing truthers and publicly mocked both the Haas team and the entities winning legal disputes against him. But where were actual cans of Rich Energy, and did the supposed sponsorship funds exist?

In the six months between Storey's first race as a Formula One sponsor and his very public exit, he stole the spotlight with a loud mouth and an active Twitter account. Haas team boss Guenther Steiner once described the Rich Energy news cycle as: "I'm getting sick of answering these stupid f--king questions on a race weekend. I've never seen any f--king thing like this." No one else had, either. This book uncovers the complete, bizarre story.

©2022 Elizabeth Blackstock and Alanis King (P)2023 Tantor

Not much new information here

I was excited to read the inside story of Rich Energy and William Storey. However, I only got information already in the public domain, and there was minimal investigative reporting. If you are familiar with the story of Rich Energy and Haas F1, you will already know most of what is in this book. If you’re unfamiliar with the story of Rich Energy, I’m not sure why this book would interest you.

The authors rely heavily on desk research, i.e., the internet, Twitter, and people returning emails or phone calls instead of in-person interviews. Don’t get me wrong, desk research has its place, but it should be used as a starting point. Here, when people didn't return the authors' emails, they just gave up and moved on. The book goes from one dead end to another with little new information. I'm not sure the authors ever left their respective desks and attempted an interview with a live human. Aside from sending the errant email, the authors never ventured out and tried to interview people who might have information.

I wanted to know how William Storey paid the first installment on his Haas F1 sponsorship. The question is broached but not answered. The authors don’t even speculate about the source of Storey’s original payment to Haas. Why didn't they try to find a can of Rich Energy or visit the Rich Energy manufacturing facility (if that even existed)? Why didn't they dig into Rich Energy's and William Storey's finances? Why didn't they interview (something beyond sending an email) associates/friends of William Storey and employees of Rich Energy?

The authors talk about Rich Energy's U.S. distributors, but they never attempted to speak with anyone. Did they ever determine if Rich Energy was available anywhere in the U.S.?

Also, was it really necessary to include every hashtag every time throughout the course of the book? It was arduous, and I almost felt the authors ran out of content and wanted to fill pages.

Finally, the fact that a person or organization doesn’t answer your emailed questions proves nothing. It also wasn't necessary to list the questions that people didn't answer - Rather, the authors should have started with the emailed questions, and when they didn’t get answers, they should have attempted to answer them with independent interviews or documentation.

Overall, very disappointing and not informative beyond what was previously reported.

Not a good topic

Unfortunately the topic is not interesting because no one the authors requested interviews with would talk to them or go on the record. The tweets by Mr. Storey sound like he was drunk or high and the endless hashtags are enough to make the listener want to drink or get high. I really wanted to like this book, I love Formula 1 and there are just so many more interesting stories that the authors could have told. Disappointing and boring.

14 hours of reading tweets

is it really "investigative journalism if no one will speak to you or go on the record answering your questions? The authors had the right idea, asked the right questions, but it seems no one would return their calls or answer their emails with anything substantial. There are a few early interviews with William Story but they were never able to get him to sit down and really tell his story. Who was he? What was his upbringing? And nothing from HAAS. And then half of the book is about unrelated F1 scandals and other motorsport stories. So what you are left with regarding Rich Energy is someone reading tweets from Twitter and quoting Companies House financials.

Took an interesting story and made it dull

Intersecting story and made it dull. The repetitive hashtags being called out area brutal. It’s a tough listen with the monotone narrator.

Way too many hashtags!!

The authors should have narrated this book. I really like them but the narration was very monotonous and the use of hashtags made it just not fun. Not sure if they had to be included in the book but certainly way too many of them.