The Californian firm Qualcomm is the new partner of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS team for the 2023 Formula 1 season .
A few weeks away from a new Formula 1 season , Qualcomm makes its new sponsorship official. After displaying the Snapdragon logo on the Ferrari team chassis until the end of 2022, the chipmaker appears as a sponsor of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS team and will accompany Lewis Hamilton and George Russell during 2023.
The announcement was made official during the presentation of the new W14 with which Mercedes will try to retake the lead in the constructors’ championship, after the title obtained by RedBull last year. The presentation event, held at the Silverstone racetrack, revealed the location of the Snapdragon logo on the chassis.
In this case, the W14 PERFORMANCE sports the Snapdragon logo on the front spoiler and next to the rear spoiler that houses the DRS system. In addition, the agreement provides for Qualcomm’s symbol product logo to appear on the team’s garage and the drivers’ suits. Snapdragon will appear alongside technology partners such as INEOS, AMD and Teanviewer.
“Innovation is fundamental to our business. It is as important in connecting with our fans and building the workplace of the future as it is in the design and creation of our race cars,” said Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One team. “With the Snapdragon brand, we have the perfect partner to innovate and transform. We look forward to creating unique and bold solutions as we advance in these areas.”
End of agreement between Qualcomm and Ferrari
Until 2022, Qualcomm maintained an advertising agreement with Ferrari valued at 24 million dollars, which included collaborative assistance on technological issues. However, negotiations for the renewal of the contract did not come to fruition at the end of last year.
“Snapdragon offers premium experiences, and our partners are best-in-class. The Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team is F1’s leading technology team, making it the ideal partner for the Snapdragon brand,” he said . Don McGuire, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcomm Technologies. “Together, we are committed to reimagining the fan experience by bringing Snapdragon to fans around the world.”
What technology companies sponsor Formula 1?
The highest category of world motorsport is not strange terrain for technology companies. For years, Amazon Web Services is the logistics partner of the FIA for data management and multimedia archiving, as well as the logistics partner of Ferrari since 2019.
RedBull maintains the support of Oracle for information management, as well as the logo of Citrix, Zoom, Siemens – a firm that also sponsors the Alpha Tauri team -, Hewlett Packard and América Movil, among others. For its part, McLaren has the support of Google, following an agreement announced in 2022 for the inclusion of Android and Google Chrome in the team’s chassis.
Aston Martin is sponsored by TeamViewer on the new AMR23 model that will be used by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll this season, while BWT Alpine has a multi-year agreement with Microsoft for data management. HAAS , for its part, maintains a commercial relationship with Money Gram and the NFTs Open Sea website.
In the case of Alfa Romeo, the KICK streaming platform and the Socios.com blockchain service appear as sponsorships on the chassis of the Sauber-managed team; while Duracell, Broadcom and Zeiss are listed as commercial partners of the Williams team .