New sponsor joins McLaren in F1 Academy
The British team has just signed an agreement with NTT Data, which specializes in IT engineering services. The company will become the official partner of the Woking-based team's F1 Academy team.
McLaren continues to strengthen its commercial partnerships. After an already successful off-season with the addition of seven new sponsors (Airwallex, Ecolab, Dropbox, Optimum Nutrition, Alpinestars, Monster, and Estrella Galicia, former sponsor of Carlos Sainz), the British team announced a new agreement with NTT Data, a company specializing in IT engineering services, founded in 1988.
The choice of NTT Data is not trivial, as the company is currently the main sponsor and official technological partner of IndyCar, the American single-seater championship. With its experience in motorsport, NTT Data is a strategic choice for McLaren, who is looking to collaborate with brands with a strong presence in the field. Matt Dennington, McLaren’s commercial co-director, is pleased with this agreement.
We are delighted to strengthen our partnership with NTT Data within the F1 Academy. This collaboration, already solid thanks to our Arrow McLaren team in IndyCar, is another step towards our commitment to opening up motorsport to female drivers. We are happy to welcome NTT Data on this adventure.
The partnership will take effect at the Dutch Grand Prix, the fourth round of the F1 Academy women’s championship. NTT Data will support Philippine driver Bianca Bustamante, a member of the McLaren team. This support is part of the F1 Academy championship, which requires each official Formula 1 team to support a female driver. McLaren has thus recruited Bianca Bustamante for the 2024 season, her second in the discipline, after a first season in 2023 with the Prema team, where she finished 7th with 116 points.
This season, Bustamante, racing for ART GP, has scored 57 points, notably thanks to a second place in the second race in Miami, behind Abbie Pulling, who is supported by Alpine. With four rounds remaining in Zandvoort, Singapore, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, the F1 Academy promises more exciting battles. With a 90-point gap behind leader Abbie Pulling, Bustamante hopes that these final races will allow her to gain more experience in single-seaters. She can rely on her recent experience in Zandvoort, having already raced on this circuit last month with Hitech in the British F4 Championship.
This new partnership is part of McLaren’s global strategy, which continues to display its ambitions while setting itself apart from its competitors. Despite these multiple commercial agreements, the British team has still not signed a title sponsor, a deliberate choice made and acknowledged by its director, Zak Brown.
« From the start, I wanted us not to be dependent on a title sponsor,” explains Zak Brown. « Having a main sponsor, as some teams do, can be risky. If this sponsor withdraws, it creates a difficult void to fill. We must remain cautious and never forget where we come from. We had to fight to get here, and it pushes us to work even harder to prevent it from happening again. We take nothing for granted.”
