Then there are the drivers and teams, who are free to set their own more ambitious goals.
Williams has set a corporate goal of “going climate positive” by 2030, and Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel is committed to the cause, wearing branded apparel to every Grand Prix and even a helmet design for the Miami Grand Prix to take action on climate change promote climate change.
Sooner or later, the sport will have to reckon with accepting crypto sponsorships that go against their shared ethos, like tobacco sponsorships were unilaterally banned in 2006.
“We take the sustainability argument very seriously and of course our partners do too, so obviously we’re looking at technologies that can improve that,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Motorsport.com.
“If we can help achieve that, it’s an exciting new sector and it’s great to see so much interest and that F1 is so appealing.”
Collaborating with crypto brands to improve sustainability seems to be the common stance across major teams.
“The sustainability argument is extremely important, but it’s not just about the degradation and the energy consumed, it’s also about where the energy comes from,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.
“But you can’t shut yourself off from modern technology. It’s definitely an area that will grow.”
The huge crypto investment in Formula 1
If it is nearing a foregone conclusion that at least one of these factors could lead to crypto’s demise in Formula 1, what impact will this have on the sport?
The sport itself has a $100 million deal with Crypto.com, a global partner that owns naming rights to certain Grands Prix.
Red Bull’s landmark deal with Bybit is reportedly a $150 million three-year deal, while other sponsorships are harder to come by.
Crypto.com (Aston Martin), Bybit (Red Bull), FTX (Mercedes), Binance (Alpine), and OKX (McLaren) are all crypto exchanges.
While the overall outlook for crypto isn’t great for the industry as a whole, exchanges would be in the best position of any crypto sponsor and would clip the ticket on the way up or down regardless.
Velas (Ferrari), Fantom (Alpha Tauri) and Tezos (McLaren/Red Bull) are all their own blockchain platforms or ecosystems.
While the ecosystems may be isolated from the broader crypto market, they are still dependent on the overall sentiment of the sector.
Ecosystems must remain self-sustaining to remain viable, attracting developers and partners to join and remain in the project.
For outsiders, the actual use of these platforms or the differences between them remain completely unfathomable.
The type of deals with Formula 1 teams remains similarly opaque.
For the most part, these deals have had the greatest impact on fans, who have supported teams by purchasing NFTs or fan tokens.
These fans faced the consequences for their loyalty to the sport as the value of the tokens plummeted – or in some cases evaporated.
If the teams were more open about the partnerships, one could get a clearer picture of the dollar value of their crypto exposure.
Like everything sensitive in Formula 1, the garage door is closed.
And like every cycle, F1 teams have proven their adaptability.
With tobacco sponsorship and the dot-com boom, esports sponsors have come and gone.
Haas Racing was able to rebuild despite the loss of their title sponsor at the start of a crucial season – perhaps helped by the excuse that sponsorship fees are non-refundable due to sanctions.
The American team also does not currently have a crypto partner listed on their website.
On the plus side, after the Rich Energy debacle, partnership departments would consider the risk of brands entering the sport for notoriety and leaving without paying their bills.
But the recent fall is worrying and the first sponsor to leave the pack could signal the wind shift in the paddock.
It may have already happened that Turkey’s Bitci ecosystem is leaving a “multi-year partnership” with McLaren after one season.
The deal lasted from March 2021 to February 2022.
Certainly, crypto is also funding the F1 highway – the keywords in this article are enough to make sure you are likely to see an ad next to this article.
And Alfa Romeo?
Alfa counts Floki among its sponsors, a “meme coin” that trades in the success of crypto projects like Dogecoin.
“The coin is named after Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu,” reads the description on CoinMarketCap, which should tell you everything you need to know about this project.
Elsewhere in the CoinMarketCap profile for Floki:
“Not a meme coin, but a movement.”
Right.
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