Formula 1 welcomes more and more partners from the world of new technologies. Some support the teams in the traditional form of sponsorship, others help the championship to be even more immersive, from the spectator’s point of view. Clubic explains who does what, and why.
F1 resumes its rights this weekend on the side of Sakhir with the Bahrain Grand Prix, which opens a 2022 season full of promise, with regulations tinged with profound modifications which, hopefully, will no longer limit the battle for the title from World Champion to only Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, although this one was exciting until the twilight of last season. After this introduction which, I’m sure, made your mouth water, we took a little tour of the different teams involved in F1 this year at the editorial office, and the observation was simple, but oh so symbolic : Tech giants are increasingly inviting themselves into the small world of Formula 1, which is more attractive than ever for brands.
Google, Dell, DarkTrace, Tezos… McLaren investigates technology partners
In recent days, new names in new technologies have made a remarkable entry into F1. One of them, perhaps the most famous brand in the world, is none other than Google, now an official partner of the McLaren team, driven by drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris. And the multi-year partnership is not just visual. Because if the Android and Chrome brands will be on the bonnet and hubcaps of the MCL36 (the name of McLaren’s single-seater this season) as well as on the helmets and suits of the two drivers, Google will also help the British team on a technological plan. Throughout this season, McLaren will use 5G-enabled Android devices and the Chrome browser during practice, qualifying and races.
The McLaren team is also a model of its kind in branding oriented new technologies. Dell Technologies is a technological partner of the British team and provides it with both software and hardware, particularly in terms of storage, security, ground operations and manufacturing. The Cloud and security are also other points on which the two entities are partners.
In addition to Google, McLaren welcomes other partners from new technologies. Self-proclaimed ” blockchain
the most advanced in the world », Tezos makes available to the stable its network and its experience of NFT. Darktrace, a cyber company which defends critical infrastructures all over the world, and Arrow Electronics, a big name in the distribution of technological solutions, are also present on the single-seater as technical support for the team.
Red Bull integrates the cloud giant, Oracle, into the “naming” of its team
McLaren is obviously not the only team on the board to have entered into partnerships with the Tech giants. The Oracle Red Bull Racing team of reigning world champion Max Verstappen sees the cloud giant (Oracle) directly added to its name, as a technical partner. The team will indeed rely more on Oracle Cloud to power race strategy, engine development and fan engagement.
The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) division will run billions of race strategy simulations to maximize its drivers’ chances of victory. ” Oracle Cloud Enabled Us to Make Race Day Decisions That Helped Max Verstappen Win the 2021 Drivers’ Championship “, even explains the boss of the team, Christian Horner, thus illustrating the weight of technology on the pure performance of single-seaters in F1.
On the technological level, Red Bull is also supported by Citrix (which does virtualization of workstations and is incidentally a partner of Google Chrome), but also Siemens, Hewlett Packard Enterprise or the American telecom giant, AT&T, to name a few. quote them. Tezos or Square’s mobile payment service, Cash App, but also the company specializing in headsets and videoconferencing equipment, Poly, are other team partners.
The impact of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in F1
At Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton’s team, the TeamViewer remote assistance solution, the CrowdStrike real-time endpoint protection platform and the giant AMD are among the team’s major partners, along with the FTX cryptocurrency, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and data services company Pure Storage.
Scuderia Ferrari, for its part, counts Snapdragon among its “ Premium Partner ”, Snapdragon being the flagship system of chips of the American giant Qualcomm. The legendary Italian team is also supported by the Velas blockchain, by the company specializing in data processing software Palantir and CEVA Logistics, a subsidiary of the Marseille-based company CMA CGM, the world leader in maritime transport, which provides end-to-end supply chain solutions.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) also supports Ferrari and provides Cloud, machine learning and artificial intelligence services to the team of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Saint Jr. Note that the AWS Cloud subsidiary is above all a major partner of F1 as a whole. It offers the competition a lot of data, serving both the teams and the spectators, having pushed the broadcasting of the Grands Prix into a new dimension, more immersive than ever in terms of statistics. Amazon gathers data from the 200 to 300 sensors present on each single-seater on the grid to explain, detail and anticipate the performance of F1 cars and drivers.
Tech giants in Formula 1? A calculated presence
Other F1 partners from Tech include the famous crypto-currency exchange platform Crypto.com, the IT giant Lenovo, the video conferencing star Zoom, and the online bookmaker 188BET. as well as the enterprise cloud provider for finance and human resources, Workday. Microsoft, Boeing and the cybersecurity company Mandiant are among the partners of the French BWT Alpine F1 Team.
Bang & Olufsen is the latest Tech to join F1. The Danish company which designs high-end audiovisual equipment (speakers, headphones, televisions and accessories) announced on Friday March 18 that it had entered into a multi-year partnership with the Williams Racing team.
Along with the Bang & Olufsen logo, which will now be seen on the FW44 (the British team’s 2022 livery), Williams and the Danish brand will work together to create experiences that are both immersive and multi-sensory for their fans. and respective customers. ” This collaboration will be showcased around the world, in Bang & Olufsen stores, at Williams Racing facilities, at Grand Prix tracks, and at Williams headquarters in Grove, Oxfordshire, England. “, explains the team.
You will therefore have understood, whether to help finance the teams, F1 or to support its technological development, the big Tech companies are no longer content to point the tip of their noses, but are now omnipresent. All have various interests in showing up in Formula 1. On the one hand, the 2022 season will offer everyone a record number of Grands Prix (23, provisionally reduced to 22 with the cancellation of the Russian GP), which guarantees the of brands an XXL exhibition. In addition, as the race also takes place online and on social networks (and no longer just on television), the partner companies of the teams reach more people than before. Not to mention the fact that F1 remains very attractive. In 2021, it attracted more than 1.55 billion viewers worldwide. The number of unique people watching at least one race in 2021 is estimated at 445 million. Enough to motivate the big names in Tech to afford some exposure.
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