Sponsorships in F1, like you may have noticed, have evolved over the years. Roughly, what we know of it now is that it is all about who has more money, the best tech, or the better influence. From what we’ve also observed, several team sponsors have come and gone, except one, which is slowly becoming a trend – the interest of cryptocurrency companies.
Since we are more interested in the key players of Formula 1 motorsport racing the sponsors are a set of people that have made the sport famous. Well, we won’t ignore the effort of the racers, teams, and engineers. These sponsors make sure that teams and their players (or racers) are equipped with every necessary thing possible to achieve success on the track.
What we hope to do in this article is to show you popular F1 racing teams with crypto sponsorships and future trajectories.
F1 Team Sponsorships with Crypto Companies
The history of F1 sponsorship dates as far back as 1968, with Team Lotus and Imperial Tobacco signing an £85,000 per year deal. For over four decades, this relationship thrived and became the foundation for many other partnerships in the motorsport world, including those with crypto companies. In fact, the first crypto and F1 partnership didn’t happen until 2019.
See below for cryptocurrency companies and sponsored F1 teams.
Crypto.com with Aston Martin
In 2021, one of the most revolutionary things happened in the world of motorsport. Crypto.com collaborated with Aston Martin, becoming its official sponsor and the first to collaborate with an F1 racing team. Crypto.com was indeed all-in-one if you talk about setting standards and becoming a pioneer at something.
This F1 team and its fans enjoyed so much from this partnership. For example, you could get discounts and early access to new merch, as long as you are a fan. There were also other limited digital collectibles and NFT drops to benefit from. We won’t be surprised if this was where many crypto companies got their idea to collaborate with various F1 teams.
FTX and Tezos with Mercedes-AMG Petronas
Mercedes-AMG Petronas is one of the leading sports brands in motorsport racing. Since it is a popular brand, we believe that this may have given it an edge over other teams in this industry – for example, the collaboration with crypto establishments like FTX and Tezos.
Still in 2021, the crypto exchange company, FTX, joined Mercedes as its sponsor, providing non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles for fans. You could see the influence of this company all over Mercedes cars and its drivers’ suits. The same goes for Tezos, another blockchain platform, also responsible for creating NFTs based on its energy-efficient model.
Velas with Ferrari
Ferrari is another well-known company in motorsports racing, especially for its fast cars. You shouldn’t be surprised to find them on the list because they are equally as open to partnerships from major companies. In this case, Vela, a blockchain company, is one of the sponsors of Ferrari – in fact, the team’s official blockchain partner.
Vela’s and Ferrari’s relationship benefited both the fans and the vehicle brand. For example, Vela is mainly interested in ensuring speedy payments, which would be good news to fans who decide to become members of the platform. It isn’t a coincidence that this aligns with what Ferrari is – a fast motorcar and an excellent branding strategy. It also provides NFTs, fan tokens, and develops exclusive digital content for fans of the team.
Bybit with Red Bull Racing
Bybit is a popular crypto trading platform, just the way Red Bull Racing is a household name in the motorsports industry. This wouldn’t have been an easy deal. According to reports, this partnership is one of the biggest so far in crypto and F1 history. First, Bybit helped Red Bull Racing gain a good public image with a series of fan-oriented digital initiatives, such as NFT drops and crypto rewards. Then, it helped the team invest more into getting the best racing technology for top performance. If you don’t call that a match made in heaven, then we don’t know what else is.
Current Challenges With The Partnership
While cryptocurrency partnerships have benefited F1 teams and the crypto company, there are still some challenges. For example, F1 regulations prevent crypto companies from being sole owners of teams. That means no matter how much they are willing to support a team, they cannot OWN the team or establish one. However, there is a bit of a bend here… crypto investors could become stakeholders in the team.
Another problem with this collaboration is market volatility and the uncertainty with owning tokens. You shouldn’t be shocked knowing that digital assets fluctuate whether they are used as currency in crypto casinos, other gambling platforms, or high-stakes sponsorships like F1. And when teams partner with these crypto companies and receive token payments, they become a part of the risk associated with market changes. This means that whatever happens in the market directly affects the value of sponsorship funds.
The Future of F1-Crypto Partnership
F1 and Cryptocurrency partnership’s future is yet unknown, but what we can say is: there is a potential for a good future for both parties. The reasons are:
- Wide crypto adoption across multiple platforms that will enable its usability beyond motorsport
- More interest in F1 racing
- New crypto companies getting into the market
Conclusion
Now, many people have suddenly become interested in keeping digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin simply by supporting their favorite teams in F1 racing. This looks good for the sport and the growth of cryptocurrencies in general. And speaking about the problems, it doesn’t look like they cannot be solved. It should only take some flexibility in the regulations governing Formula 1 and cryptocurrency companies and everyone would become owners of digital assets one way or another. Overall, sponsorships are a significant part of sports, regardless of the type and knowing this definitely puts things into perspective as to why some people are huge fans.