Filed under: Motorsports, Marketing/Advertising, Infiniti
If you're going to sign a new sponsorship deal with a racing team, you might want to do so before the team wins the championship, not after. But Infiniti seems to have a different idea. Nissan's luxury division signed on as a sponsor for the Red Bull Racing team after it won the championship last season, and now that it's secured both the drivers' and manufacturers' titles again, the two have announced an extension of their arrangement.
When the deal was first announced, speculation ran rampant that it would extend to Infiniti "supplying" engines to the team. You see, Red Bull's cars get their power from engines made by Renault, which is part of the same corporate alliance as Infiniti. And since most automakers that get involved in F1 either start or buy their own teams or supply engines to existing ones, logic dictated that the deal between Infiniti and Red Bull would see Renault's engines rebranded, thereby making the team's official name Red Bull-Infiniti.
The rebranding arrangement wouldn't be unprecedented. McLaren, for example, once ran Porsche engines rebranded as TAG. Sauber did the same with Petronas-branded Ferrari engines. Cosworth engines have at times been branded as Ford, Fondmetal or European, while Mercedes engines are actually made by Ilmor, which supplied F1 engines under its own name in the early 90s before Benz bought out their F1 operations.
That apparently won't be the case with Red Bull and Infiniti, however. At least not for another year to come. Instead, the deal between the two outfits will see Infiniti's logos grow in size and placement on next year's cars and other team gear, as Infiniti works to leverage the cooperation in new ways. Official announcement after the jump.
Continue reading Infiniti's renewed partnership with Red Bull stops short of rebranded engines
Infiniti's renewed partnership with Red Bull stops short of rebranded engines originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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