The Haas Formula One team will have payment and remittance company MoneyGram (MGI.O) as their main sponsor from next season in a multi-year deal that will provide a welcome cash boost to the kit. The series’ only US-based costume.
The endorsement was officially announced at a cafe in downtown Austin on Thursday ahead of this weekend’s US Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas.
Haas joined F1 in 2016 and has spent most of that time with no title sponsor other than Haas Automation, the company of machine tool industrialist and team owner Gene Haas.
The Ferrari-powered team is eighth out of 10 in the leaders’ standings, level with AlphaTauri in ninth.
Uralkali, owned by Russian billionaire Dmitry Mazepin, is the team’s most recent title sponsor but Potash producer is forced to leave the sport in February after the financier was blacklisted by the European Union for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow called a “special operation”.
MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes told Reuters that Formula One and Haas are the perfect fit for a company that operates in more than 200 countries and territories and is looking to energize its brand. me.
Next year F1 will have a record 24 races across 21 countries and 5 continents, including 3 races in the US.
Holmes told Reuters: “We like to consider ourselves one of the fastest ways to deposit money and F1 is one of the fastest sports in the world which we think is a great overlap and a great opportunity. extremely unique to us.
“When you think about the Haas themselves, they were a rock and roll group and under the leadership of Gene and a partnership with Guenther [Steiner, team principal] I think they’ve made a really compelling team.
“Many people may think they [Haas] are underdogs and that’s totally the cool thing about it – people want to root for them, they want them to succeed, and I think that’s a great partnership. “
MoneyGram has explored sports sponsorship before and has partnered with ICC Cricket and Major League Soccer FC Dallas.
Holmes said the company has many opportunities to enter F1 but only recently has it found the right fit and the right timing, with the sport seeing a spike in popularity partly due to Netflix’s Drive to Survive TV series.
The three races in the US, including the American Grand prix near MoneyGram’s Dallas home ground, are intriguing with Holmes describing the addition of Las Vegas to the calendar as a “game changer”.
“I think the Vegas race is a game changer. I think Miami has a lot of fun,” he said.
“Races that have been so historic, so iconic for so many years, like Monaco, keep that luster, but to add something like Las Vegas, I think like modernized Monaco. on steroids.
“It’s an opportunity to bring the sport to life in the US market.”
Haas’ driving squad features Danish veterans Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher, the son of seven-time world champion Michael, but the German is out of contract at the end of the season and faces an uncertain future sure.
Haas has asked drivers to bring sponsorship or Ferrari backing in the past, but Steiner said the team will face fewer restrictions in some areas due to the MoneyGram deal.
“With the right financing, things will get better,” he told Reuters. “We’re working to see what we want to do… we don’t set a deadline because if you don’t meet it you’ll put pressure on yourself to make decisions and possibly be wrong. Or you let everyone down.
“We keep it completely public and once we know exactly what we want, once we’ve made a deal, we’ll publish it.”
