07/09/2011
NEWS STORY
Lotus Renault GP has four new partners - two of them Brazilian - for the remainder of the season.
The deals all begin with immediate effect, just four days ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, and two weeks after the British team dropped Nick Heidfeld in favour of Bruno Senna, .and last until the end of the 2011 season.
The agreements with Embratel, Gillette, OGX and Auden McKenzie offer global platforms through which all new partners will promote their brands.
Embratel is already a personal sponsor of Bruno Senna and, following on from the 27-year-old's debut for Lotus Renault GP in Belgium, the Rio de Janeiro-based company decided to partner with LRGP for the remainder of the season. Embratel, which is owned by American Mobile, a Mexican telecommunications company, is a major player in voice, data and video communication, internet and pay-TV in Brazil.
"We at Embratel are proud to be with Lotus Renault GP and Bruno Senna in the Formula 1 world," said company president, Jose Formoso. "In addition to Embratel's brand, the Brazilians are taking the Senna name back to a Formula 1 race and, clearly, it is a special emotion for all the Brazilians that are passionate about F1."
"We decided to establish a partnership with Lotus-Renault GP because it is a traditional, respectable and efficient team, just like Gillette," added Gillette MD, Jose Cirilo. "We seek to give men the best they can get with products that offer precision, so we build our reputation through association with high performance sports and teams, such as Lotus Renault GP."
OGX is the largest privately owned Brazilian oil and natural gas company, and the second largest Brazilian company in its sector. It has secured a leading position in Brazilian exploration and the production of oil and natural gas through the acquisition of a diversified portfolio of blocks and high exploration potential. This is a portfolio comprised of 34 exploratory blocks - 22 offshore and 12 onshore - with prospective resources estimated at 10.8 billion barrels.
"We're proud to be partnering with Lotus Renault GP," said OGX CEO, Eike Batista, "a team that will be heavily-supported in our home market of Brazil. Passion, the spirit of leadership and discipline are all part of the values of the EBX Group. It is these values, along with Lotus Renault GP's knowledge of and drive for success that leads us to believe this partnership will be a prosperous one."
The Auden McKenzie Group was founded by Amit Patel in 2001. Launched with a small pharmaceutical manufacturing unit employing three people and marketing only one injectable product, Auden McKenzie now employs over 70 people through whom the Pharmaceutical Division holds over 60 Product Licences in the UK and eight licenses in European countries. The company has also recently been granted its first authorisation in the United States. Its products are marketed in over 30 countries internationally and are present in all hospitals, pharmacies and wholesalers in the UK.
"At Auden McKenzie, we are fully aware of the power of promoting a brand by sports," said Auden McKenzie CEO, Amit Patel. "For the first time we are partnering with a Formula 1 team, and we are very pleased to be offering our support to Lotus Renault GP's ambition to return to the very top of the sport. For the brand, being associated with a high level team in such a global sport is of great importance to us, and we are confident that the collaboration will be a prosperous one. We are very pleased to be onboard, and look forward to successful times both on and off the track in the coming months".
"We are delighted to welcome no fewer than four new partners to our commercial portfolio, and to what is proving to be a very exciting season of Formula 1," said Eric Boullier. "Lotus Renault GP share a common ethos with all the brands, in that we want to achieve at the very highest level through world-class professional practices. We are looking forward to prosperous relationships with all four partners in the coming months."