F1 team sponsorship

The Ferrari Formula One team was resistant to sponsorship for many years and it was not until 1977 that the cars began to feature the logo of the Fiat group (which had been the owners of the Ferrari company since 1969). Until the 1980s, the only other companies whose logos appeared on Ferrari's F1 cars were technical partners such as Magneti Marelli and Agip. In September 2005 Ferrari announced they had signed an extension of their sponsorship arrangement with Philip Morris International until 2011. This comes at a time when advertising of tobacco sponsorship has become illegal in the European Union and other major teams have withdrawn from relationships with tobacco companies – McLaren have ended their eight year relationship with West. In reporting the deal, F1 Racing magazine judged it to be a 'black day' for the sport, putting non-tobacco funded teams at a disadvantage and discouraging other brands from entering a sport still associated with tobacco. The magazine estimates that in the period between 2005 and 2011 Ferrari will receive $1 billion from the agreement. In December 2005 Vodafone announced that it was withdrawing its sponsorship of Ferrari in favour of title sponsorship of McLaren beginning in 2007. The Times said Ferrari were "stunned" by the decision.[27] Vodafone's position on the car has been taken over by Telecom Italia's broadband Alice brand. Other companies currently sponsoring Scuderia Ferrari include: Fiat (Fiat car brand, part of the Fiat car group which is the largest stakeholder (85%) in Ferrari), Shell – Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Alice, Bridgestone, AMD, Acer, and several others among which are Mubadala Development Company (an investment company owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi which also owns 5% of Ferrari shares as of the 2007 season) Etihad Airways (until 2011),and Piaggio Aero. As part of the deal with Acer, they are allowed to sell Ferrari-badged laptops. On the other hand, in early 2009 semiconductor chipmaker AMD announced it had decided to drop their sponsorship of the team and is just waiting for its contract to expire after its former Vice President and Sales Executive (who was an avid fan of motorsports) had left the company. On 10 September 2009, Ferrari announced that they would be sponsored by Santander from 2010 on a five year contract. It is believed that Santander will pay around 40 million euros per season to sponsor Ferrari. Apart from sponsors, Scuderia Ferrari currently have the following companies as official suppliers: Magneti Marelli, OMR, SKF, Europcar, Iveco, NGK, Puma, Tata Consultancy Services, Brembo, BBS, SELEX Communications, Technogym, Kaspersky Lab, Schuberth and Microsoft (note: the sponsors/suppliers information is accurate for the 2010 season).

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