Ferrari is set to bring in a new driver for the 2025 F1 season, with Lewis Hamilton set to leave Mercedes after the 2024 season and join the Italian flagship team next year.
Now, according to reports, Ferrari plans to add a new title sponsor and a new driver.
As first reported, sports business, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is poised to join Ferrari as title sponsor. If the deal goes through, HP will become the team’s first title sponsor since the 2021 season, when Ferrari teamed up with tobacco giant Philip Morris and competed as Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow.
according to sports businessthe proposed agreement is equivalent to the title sponsorship relationship between Red Bull and Oracle; The most profitable thing at the moment is in sports. “According to sources, the annual value of the deal is comparable to Red Bull Racing’s title sponsorship deal with technology company Oracle, making it currently the most valuable contract of its kind in F1. ,” writes Matthew Williams. sports business.
Why is this important? As Williams points out, driver contracts don’t fall under the sport’s “cost cap,” so teams are free to pay their drivers without compromising team operations.with hamilton His contract with Ferrari is rumored to be worth $100 million.bringing HP on board as a new title sponsor will ease that burden.
“The deal between Ferrari and HP will enable the team to pay the wages of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who will replace Carlos Sainz.” [Jr.] At the beginning of next season,” Williams wrote. “Driver salaries do not count towards F1’s ‘cost cap’, so teams can spend unlimited amounts on star acquisitions.”
This is not HP’s first foray into F1. The team sponsored Williams from his 2000 until his 2005, and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises (HPE) currently has relationships with both Mercedes and Sauber. (Hewlett-Packard Company) He separated the two divisions to form HP and HPE, with HP focusing on hardware and HPE focusing on servers, storage, and networking.
This season, Ferrari appears to be closing the gap with Red Bull, perhaps at the top. The Scuderia currently trail Red Bull by 44 points in the constructors’ standings, and Sainz is the only non-Red Bull Grand Prix winner. He did it one season ago.
Perhaps Maranello’s hope is that Hamilton and HP can help further close the gap to Red Bull.
