I think I’ve solved the mystery of it, with a little bit of help. I’m a regular editor of the motorsport pages on Wikipedia, and I found a Russian-speaking editor, Cybervoron, who also works on the motorsport pages. Actually, I’ve known about him for a while, but it only occurred to me to ask him about it just now.
He sent me a link to an interview with Igor Mazepa – it’s not in English, so I won’t link to it – which contains the following quote:
“Русское время пришло и сразу будет стремиться вперёд”
According to Cybervoron, it translates like this:
“Russian time has come and will immediately strive forward”
The best explanation we have for it is that “Russian Time” is intended to mean “Russia’s time is now”. has come. In the past decade or so, there have been dozens of Russian racing drivers emerging on the international scene. Just off the top of my head, there is Petrov, Aleshin, Sirotkin, Martsenko, Kvyat, Move, Suranovich, Afanaysiev, Dudukalo and Snegriev. In fact, in the past decade, Russia has produced more racing drivers than any other country that did not previously have any real presence in motorsport.
Now, to answer @hairs question about why a Ukrainian businessman is styling his team as being Russian: I have a friend who is from Moldova. Most of her extended family is Russian, but the two most recent generations were living in what is now Moldova during the time of the Soviet Union. When the Berlin Wall came down and the USSR imploded, new borders were drawn, and she became Moldovan, even though parts of her family are Russian (she prefers to be referred to as Moldovan, since she identifies with the country more). It’s likely that something similar happened to Mazeda: he has an affinity for Russia, despite being Ukrainian himself. His birth certificate would list him as being born in the Soviet Union (or at least the Ukrainian SSR). It’s a little unusual that he might identify himself with Russia more than the Ukraine, since the Russians and the Ukrainians don’t really get along for historical reasons. Of course, this is all speculation on my part, but it’s the most reasonable explanation that I can think of.
That said, maybe he’s just hoping that the 2014 GP2 Series calendar will visit Sochi, and that by calling his team “Russian Time” (as opposed to “Ukrainian Time”), they’ll get more coverage.
