F1’s Global Reach Attracts Infiniti to Red Bull

Infiniti’s marketing deal with Red Bull Racing – to be officially announced in Geneva on Tuesday – sees the Nissan-owned brand attempt to broaden its appeal outside the USA.

Entering F1 purely as a sponsor allows Infiniti to go to head-to-head with Mercedes and Ferrari while spending a fraction of the budget. There will be no impact on the team or engine name.

With Group Lotus and Lada pulling off similar deals with Renault the likes of BMW, Toyota and Honda must be wondering about the huge sums they spent before pulling out of the sport.

The official announcement said: “Infiniti will have a high-profile branding presence on the racing car, drivers’ clothing and related team uniforms and equipment. In addition to the branding and marketing relationship, Infiniti will work with Renault to forge future technical collaboration with Red Bull Racing.”

Nissan’s boss of global marketing and public relations Simon Sproule told my colleagues at AutoWeek of the reasoning behind the deal: “The big-growth markets for Infiniti in the future – China, Russia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, etc – are all the places F1 has expanded or will expand into. Where it is going, we’re going.

“Yes, the US is the biggest single market for Infiniti, and F1 is coming back to the US next year. So even though F1 on a relative basis is not so big in the US, it’s going get a higher profile when the race comes to Austin. And frankly, the target market for Infiniti tends to be people that are more aware of international racing series like F1, and who tend to be attracted by a premium race series.

“We just signed the deal, so now we’re working on the activation plan. But we’ve got two great drivers, and the world champion. So absolutely, we’re super excited. Sebastian is driving an Infiniti already. So yes, they will be working with us to help activate the programme.”

Sproule admitted that it was too early to elaborate on the promised technical collaboration: “We’ve discussed getting the engineers together. But at the moment, there is no placement of Nissan engineers in the team – but we’ll see. Certainly there’s a great amount of interest to collaborate on projects.”

Meanwhile Christian Horner commented: “Red Bull has always taken a different approach, so when the Infiniti executives outlined their innovative plan to us, we were very open to working with them.”

The deal lasts for two seasons, as does Red Bull’s engine contract with Renault. That leaves open the possibility of RBR having a different arrangement when the turbo era begins in 2013.