In a striking display of commercial success, McLaren leads the 2024 F1 sponsorship rankings. With 47 sponsors, they outpace rivals, including Stake F1 and Red Bull, while Mercedes misses the top five.
Heading into the 2024 season, McLaren leads the pack in terms of sponsorships. The British racing team boasts an impressive 47 sponsors, evident from the array of stickers covering the livery of their car during the 2023 season. The Stake F1 Team follows in second place with 40 sponsors, and Red Bull Racing in third with 36. Surprisingly, Mercedes doesn’t make the top five.
Running a Formula 1 team comes with a significant price tag, making it unsurprising that a substantial number of sponsors per team are necessary. Sponsors play a vital role in covering the high costs, from staff salaries to more expensive expenditures related to car development and test days. Sponsorships have become crucial for maintaining competitiveness on the track. This can be seen as a symbolic relationship between Formula 1 and the brands that choose to sponsor one of the teams or even the sport itself.
2024 F1 Teams’ Sponsorship Impact and Driver Deals
As such, this unique marketing tool can profoundly influence how fans connect with a brand associated with a team. Consider the Red Bull cans in supermarkets, occasionally featuring special Max Verstappen or Sergio Pérez editions, or the Ray Ban sunglasses promoted by Ferrari. In this way, a sponsor reaps the benefits of sponsoring a Formula 1 team. Besides team sponsorships, there are naturally also individual driver sponsorships. Let’s take a look at the number of sponsors per team at the beginning of 2024, bearing in mind that this number can change throughout the season.
| Position | Team | Number of Sponsors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLaren | 47 |
| 2 | Stake F1 Team | 40 |
| 3 | Red Bull Racing | 36 |
| 4 | Ferrari | 36 |
| 5 | Alpine | 32 |
| 6 | Aston Martin | 29 |
| 7 | Mercedes | 25 |
| 8 | Williams | 16 |
| 9 | Haas | 15 |
| 10 | AlphaTauri | 12 |
F1 2024 Sponsorship Leaders McLaren Leads the Pack
McLaren has clearly emerged as the team with the most sponsors. During the 2023 season, it was evident that the British racing team had successfully secured a significant number of partners and deals. McLaren CEO Zak Brown has utilized his experience in the commercial world over the past seasons to attract sponsors like Google, Dell, and British American Tobacco (VELO). Recently, McLaren even managed to snag a major sponsor from Mercedes, namely Monster Energy. The energy drink giant, which had been a partner of Mercedes for fourteen years, switched to one of its customer teams in November 2023.
On January 12th, McLaren announced a new partnership with the Spanish beer brand Estrella Galicia 0.0, previously a Ferrari sponsor. The British team seems to be on a streak of attracting major sponsors from other teams. The crypto platform OKX is presumably their largest sponsor, reportedly contributing ‘hundreds of millions’, although exact figures weren’t disclosed. The Stake F1 Team, formerly Alfa Romeo, ranks second in the sponsorship table with forty partners. Its most important partner and title sponsor is Stake. Sauber has entered a two-year deal with the crypto casino and sports betting platform Stake, and will retain this name until Audi’s arrival in 2026. With Stake, Sauber secured a deal worth 33 million dollars per year.
Red Bull’s $500M Oracle Deal Marks F1 Milestone
Although Red Bull doesn’t have the most partners, it boasts a mega deal with title sponsor Oracle. In 2022, the Austrian racing team and the American tech giant signed a five-year deal valued at 500 million dollars, equating to 100 million dollars per year. Besides Oracle, Red Bull also has a significant deal with ByBit. In 2022, the crypto platform agreed to a deal with Red Bull worth 150 million dollars for three years, meaning ByBit contributes 50 million dollars annually. This information on the deals is based on the end of the 2023 season, as details of some 2024 deals are yet to be disclosed.
| Team | Primary Sponsor | Annual Sponsorship Value (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Red Bull Racing | Oracle | 100,000,000 |
| McLaren | OKX | 100,000,000 |
| Mercedes | Petronas | 75,000,000 |
| Ferrari | Shell | 40,000,000 |
| Stake F1 Team | Stake | 33,000,000 |
| Aston Martin | Aramco | 30,000,000 |
| Alpine | BWT | 25,000,000 |
| Haas | MoneyGram | 20,000,000 |
| AlphaTauri | AlphaTauri | 15,000,000 |
| Williams | Duracell | 6,000,000 |
While Mercedes did not feature in the top five for the most sponsorships, their title sponsor Petronas does provide a substantial deal of 75 million dollars per year. The team’s second most important partner, INEOS, even holds shares in the team. The Silver Arrows recently finalized agreements with WhatsApp and enterprise software giant SAP.
The contributions from the main sponsors of other teams are notably less. Ferrari, at the outset of the 2023 season, lost Snapdragon and Velas, necessitating other sponsors to fill a financial gap of around 55 million dollars. Shortly after losing these two sponsors, Ferrari secured deals with Bitdefender and HCL Software. In March 2023, VGW also joined the list of sponsors for the Italian racing team.
AlphaTauri and Williams at the bottom of the sponsorship list.
AlphaTauri and Williams are at the bottom of the list regarding sponsors and the amount contributed by their main sponsors. With Nicholas Latifi’s departure at the end of the 2022 season, Williams lost sponsors Lavazza and Sofina, which together contributed about 20 million dollars per year. However, at the beginning of 2023, the British team struck a deal with oil giant Gulf Oil, bringing in about four million dollars annually. At the end of the 2023 season, the British team announced a collaboration with The Hut Group (THG), leading to the appearance of stickers from THG companies MyProtein and Ingenuity on their cars.
AlphaTauri relies heavily on sponsorship money from AlphaTauri, the clothing brand. According to GlobalData, the brand pays about fifteen million dollars annually, although this deal is expected to end this year due to the team’s name change. Besides AlphaTauri, PKN Orlen and Honda are major sponsors of Red Bull’s sister team. Should the name indeed change to Visa Cash App Red Bull, the team will obviously also gain Visa and CashApp as sponsors.
F1 2024 Sponsorship Leaders McLaren Leads the Pack. F1 2024 Sponsorship Leaders McLaren Leads the Pack.
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