HP confident of continuing partnership

By Andrew Hooper
June 13 2003

 

 

  
HP confident of deal
 
Despite the on-going negotiations between BMW and WilliamsF1 the teams main sponsors Hewlett-Packard expects the partnership to continue past its 2004 finish date.

For HP's corporate sponsorship and global F1 director Andrew Collis he views the relationship as one of importance. He said in a recnt interview: "It's important for us that BMW and Williams do continue their contract.

"It's not a deal breaker at the moment for us, we'd have to look at it if the time came, but I'm pretty confident that they are going to do a deal together. It looks very strong, it makes sense for both parties."

As for HP's involvement with other teams Collis suggested those deals were unlikely to be renewed once they expired.

He said: "It wouldn't be normal for a brand to have three F1 sponsorships unless it was part of a strategy that you were going to underpin the IT (information technology) up and down the paddock. That isn't part of our strategy.

"We want to use F1 for building our brand and the vehicle for building our brand is the BMW-WilliamsF1 team. We're supporting Jordan and Jaguar as we are contracted to do so and as partners of ours historically we don't walk away. We continue to fulfil our obligations. I can't say whether we will renew or not but it wouldn't be consistent."
 
 
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