FORMULA ONE is known for glitz and glamour, rolling out its 200-mph red carpets across the world in what many consider to be the top tier of global auto racing.

But lurking in the background are dark, and sometimes deeply strange, goings on: sex scandals with prison-camp themes, Nigerian prince scams, protests of its grands prix in countries known for their human-rights violations, tax evasion — the list goes on, and on, and on.

Those things often stay in the background, thanks to concentrated efforts by the series to maintain its opulent aura. But with the 2019 season came a force louder than Formula One could ever dream of muffling: William Storey, the founder of British startup Rich Energy.

Storey became a multimillion-dollar sponsor of the Haas Formula One Team a year after records showed Rich Energy as having a mere $770 in bank, but that didn’t matter. He equated his doubters to moon-landing truthers. He publicly mocked entities winning legal disputes against him. In the six months between Storey’s first race as a Formula One sponsor and his very public exit, he became the most visible part of the world’s most visible racing series, easily tearing down its red-carpet facades with a loud mouth and an active Twitter account.

At the time, Haas team boss Guenther Steiner described the never-ending Rich Energy news cycle, which he often had to answer for, as: “I’m getting sick of answering these stupid f—-ing questions on a race weekend. I’ve never seen any f—-king thing like this.”

No one else had, either.