BERLIN (Reuters) – German software company TeamViewer said on Tuesday that it had struck a five-year sponsorship deal with the Mercedes Formula One and Formula E teams, following its recent shirt deal with soccer club Manchester United.
The remote connectivity provider will have branding on the cars and race suits of drivers, including seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton, from the Monaco Grand Prix and ePrix in May.
Mercedes are the only manufacturer to compete in both series.
Goeppingen-based TeamViewer said the cost of the deal was accounted for in the recent downward revision to its profit margin guidance for this year made when it announced its shirt deal with Manchester United this month.
Formula One has attracted increased interest from the software sector in recent months, with Oracle partnering last year’s runners-up Red Bull and Cognizant taking title sponsorship of the Aston Martin team.
TeamViewer CEO Oliver Steil told a video conference that the high-tech sport offered companies like his a range of applications and could help reduce teams’ carbon footprint through remote working.
“The attraction of Formula One, especially Mercedes, as a sport is the multitude of use cases,” he said. “That’s what attracts technology companies. It’s manufacturing, design, logistics, monitoring, analytics.
“The breadth of use cases and application that’s possible in Formula One is very remarkable.”
Formula One has introduced a budget cap this year, and Mercedes team boss and overall motorsport head Toto Wolff said the TeamViewer deal would be assigned a value as part of the financial rules.
“By working together across F1 and FE, we can drive gains in technology performance, and we will help optimize remote operations for many companies across the globe,” he said.
“We are convinced that the growth of companies like TeamViewer will make a meaningful difference to CO2 emissions on a much greater scale.”
(Reporting by Douglas Busvine/Alan Baldwin in London, Editing by Caroline Copley and Hugh Lawson)
