17/11/2015
NEWS STORY
Tag-Heuer's 30-year partnership comes to an end as watch manufacturer heads to Red Bull.
Even though the Austrian team has yet to confirm its engine supplier for 2016, the cars will at least have one new sponsor, Tag-Heuer.
"We just signed with Red Bull Racing in F1 for next season," Tag Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver told Switzerland's L'Hebdo magazine. "It's a young, dynamic and go-getter team, perfectly matching the strategy of TAG Heuer."
However, McLaren was keen to play down talk that this is another blow to the team in what has been a torrid season.
"McLaren's partnership with Tag Heuer has been one of the most successful and enduring sponsorships in sporting history," a spokesman told Pitpass. "It has lasted 30 years, during which time both parties have achieved enormous success together.
"On track the team has won grands prix and world championships with such iconic racing heroes as Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton, and off track Tag Heuer's association with the team has caused its watches to become globally synonymous with high technology, precision and speed - three principal hallmarks of the McLaren brand.
"It is therefore with gratitude that we announce the end of our 30-year partnership, satisfied as both parties are with a job well done. Our relationship with Tag Heuer's parent company LVMH continues via our new partnership with Chandon, announced last month."
With its relationship with Renault, certainly as we currently know it, coming to an end, Red Bull is set to lose sponsors Infiniti and Total at the end of next season.