Analysis | US sponsors seize power in Formula 1
General
- GPblog.com
A landslide is under way within the Formula 1 world. No longer do European sponsors call the shots, but many backers come from the United States. Here is some analysis of the Americanisation of the sport and what consequences this has for the future.
It became a huge show. You can trust Americans to do that. Not just any string orchestra were hired for last Sunday's Miami Grand Prix. No, it had to be conducted by an internationally renowned artist, in this case, Will.i.am. That fact that the man is anything but a professional conductor did not matter. It was all about the picture: organising a major sporting event in the United States also means flying in several stars, giving the event extra status.
Glitz & glamour of F1
On the grid, famous Americans crowded around the F1 cars. Everything was "a-ma-zing!" with the Venus Williamses and Vin Diesels of this world eagerly allowed themselves to be photographed, no doubt not least for their own Instagram page. And yes, the fans present in the stands loved it all. This was the glitz & glamour they associate Formula 1 with, thanks in part to the successful series Drive to Survive. This is also the new face of Formula 1 that a lot of older fans, who care purely about the racing, hate.
It was almost forgotten, but 20 Formula One drivers and their teams gearing up for a real race themselves. Some 20 minutes before the start of the Miami Grand Prix, they stood neatly in line for minutes in the blazing sun, watching the show in which they acted mostly as extras. They had no other choice. This was a compulsory number from Formula One Management (FOM).
Drivers not overly enthusiastic
Asked afterwards whether they had enjoyed themselves, the response was fairly unanimous: 'Just this once, but let's not make a habit of it as Formula One', almost all drivers said in more or less the same terms. But that is not a certainty. Liberty Media, owners of Formula 1, is an American company, and it has grown the sport to unprecedented heights precisely by Americanising it. People who previously did not care about F1 are now suddenly buying expensive tickets to a Grand Prix.
A new, younger, and more global audience has been tapped, and sponsors are lining up. Spomotion Analytics, a Finnish company that analyses motorsport and its sponsors, concluded last week that new backers of the teams are mainly coming from the United States. Indeed, US companies have now gained the upper hand over the five main F1 sponsor markets in Europe, with these being the UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France.
More US sponsors
More than 30 per cent of the new partners/sponsors for the 2023 season are from the United States. At the start of the season, 105 US companies were associated with the 10 F1 teams. The five core countries, as mentioned earlier, supplied a total of 104, largely due to sponsors from Germany. Of these, as many as six left during the winter break. Possibly the parting of Mick Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel played a role in this. Incidentally, no sponsor from the Netherlands joined, despite Max Verstappen's enormous popularity.
On the contrary, his team Red Bull Racing saw a big increase in sponsors from the United States. In two years, the Austrian team went from nine to 18 US partners, with main sponsor Oracle being the main one. McLaren (25) and Haas (eight) are the other teams with the most US partners. Even Ferrari - you don't get more Italian than that team - has seven.
A trend that continues
It is expected that during this and subsequent seasons, more and more American companies will commit to an F1 team due to the ever-increasing popularity of the class in the US, as well as the country's now three Grands Prix. After all, a Grand Prix is a perfect place to take relations, especially when you stumble across celebrities there.
Alpine, for instance, announced shortly before the Miami race that it had signed a sponsorship deal with AutoNation. For a while, there were rumours that the car company also wanted to take over Alpine, but that turned out to be false, GPblog reported. However, an American investor is interested in (part of) the Alpine shares. Moreover, Andretti wants to make their entrance into Formula 1 with Cadillac. A purely American team, it will raise much of its funding from home.
A tricky split for the teams
The increased interest from US sponsors and the opposite trend among backers from Europe puts Formula 1 teams in a tricky split. On the one hand, the teams do not want to lose their hard-core European fans and sponsors. After all, Americans can be hugely fickle; as quickly as interest in Formula 1 increases, it can disappear again. However, at the same time, sponsorship money is badly needed, and 'coincidentally' it now often comes from the United States. In that case, the quid pro quo makes sense. That means setting up Formula 1 the way that group of sponsors likes it best: Americanised.