McLaren and Mastercard coy on potential F1 title partnership

Newly unveiled partners McLaren and Mastercard stopped short of confirming a Formula 1 title partnership is in their collective future.

Select media including Motorsport Week were invited to the Cirque Du Soleil Kà theatre at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas as Mastercard was publicly unveiled as McLaren’s Primary Partner.

The move has been gestating for some time following a July confirmation of the partnership, and now Mastercard’s branding will feature on McLaren’s cars, and hospitality suites and the global payments company will be offering exclusive offerings to its Priceless members.

The deal brings together one of F1’s most marketable teams with the 11th most-valuable brand in the world with three billion consumers.

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So will the Primary Partner become a title partner and give birth to Mastercard McLaren Racing in the near future?

“I think this is a very long-term partnership,” McLaren CEO Zak Brown said on Thursday.

“We’re having all sorts of discussions as to what the partnership looks like today, and what it can potentially become, and I would say I agree, [Mastercard McLaren] does have a very nice ring to it.”

Mastercard looking to innovate with McLaren F1 partner

Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar spoke in detail about how his brand will leverage its partnership with McLaren.

“One of the things that I’m really looking forward to, and my team at MasterCard is looking forward to, is to come up with extremely creative, and probably even crazy ideas to how we bring experiences to life that truly excite and energise and inspire the fans,” he said. 

“Now, at MasterCard, we have got close to 3 billion consumers around the world, across 210 countries and territories, and that’s quite a significant number, so we take that scale and divide presence and visibility.

“But more importantly, having got experience, and one of, if not the, most diverse set of sponsorship portfolios, we will bring all those learnings and that craziness as well from a creative point of view to the table.”

Mastercard was once a title partner in F1 before, way back in 1997.

That was with the ill-fated Lola outfit, which featured once in the ’97 season-opening Australian Grand Prix, failing to qualify before fading out of existence.

This time around, Mastercard and McLaren’s title partnership is an altogether different prospect.

A world-leading B2C2B brand teaming up with the current leaders of the F1 Constructors’ Championship.

READ MORE – McLaren secure F1 sponsorship deal with Mastercard