Ferrari hasn’t renewed the sponsorship deal with blockchain giant Velas, with the company’s name disappearing from the Scuderia’s webpage this Thursday.
The uncertainties surrounding the bitcoin market started with a bang two months ago, with the collapse of FTX and while Mercedes was the only Formula One team directly affected by that collapse – as FTX was one of its sponsors – the rest of the field quickly realized the crisis on the bitcoin market was going to hit them all.
In one of his last statements as Ferrari’s Team Principal, speaking at the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix, immediately after FTX’s collapse, Mattia Binotto warned that, “this is certainly something which we need to take care and be careful. So, we’re monitoring it, because there isn’t anything we can do at the moment. It is very difficult to know and to predict, so we are monitoring. And, obviously for what is related to our situation, but so far everything is stable and not an issue.”
Two months later the situation as changed, with Velas also feeling the impact of the crisis, so it’s not surprising the deal between the blockchain and Ferrari was not renewed, hitting the Scuderia’s finances in the same way the loss of FTX hit Mercedes.
But big, successful teams are always the least affected by this kind of situation and while Ferrari also seems to have severed ties with Snapdragon, a Qualcomm-owned company that is a suite of system on a chip semiconductor products for mobile devices, there are two new names on the team’s website that indicate two new sponsors and partners will join the team from this year.
Cybersecurity company Bitdefender and software solutions HCL have their logos now on display in Scuderia Ferrari’s website and will be announced as team partners at the start of next week, when the marketing and communication departments are back at work in Maranello, after a short break over Christmas and New Year.
And while the two deals may not make up for the loss of the previous two, particularly Velas’ as this was an important sponsor last season, what they will bring, together with the much increased prize money Ferrari will collect from finishing second in the Constructors’ Championship after being only sixth in 2021, will more than make up for the downfall, team insiders admitting the team’s operational budget will actually go up by around 20 million Euros.
