Four F1 teams jostle for massive Mastercard sponsorship

Four F1 teams are reportedly battling to secure Mastercard as a huge sponsorship.

McLaren are leading the chase to bring Mastercard on board, SportBusiness report.

Ferrari, Mercedes, and Aston Martin are also in the mix.

Next weekend’s F1 Miami Grand Prix will see a “sponsorship showdown” between the four teams who all want to bring Mastercard in.

Whoever secures the sponsor will receive a “huge cash injection”, the report claims.

If McLaren secure the deal it could even be a title sponsor, resulting in a name change for the F1 team.

Ferrari’s brand-new deal to add Hewlett-Packard as their title sponsor - which will immediately result in a name-change to Scuderia Ferrari HP - means there is no space for Mastercard to come in as a title sponsor.

That means, if Mastercard want to join Ferrari, they must settle for a sponsorship of lower importance than Hewlett-Packard’s.

Ferrari’s new deal with Hewlett-Packard is reportedly as big as Red Bull’s with their title sponsor Oracle.

Oracle’s sponsorship is worth almost half of the $135m budget cap to Red Bull.

Mastercard are eyeing a return to Formula 1 nearly 30 years after they left.

They were the title sponsor for the Lola team in 1997.

Mastercard were also involved with the Jordan F1 team.

A Mastercard comment to SportBusiness was: “We are constantly exploring how new opportunities could complement the value delivered to our customers and cardholders. But nothing new to share at this time.”

Mastercard already have big sponsorships in the sports world with the Champions League, the Rugby World, Major League Baseball among others.