Formula One to get More “Fizz?”
(GMM)
The world’s most famous soft-drink company, Coca-Cola, is planning to drive onto the F1 grid.
The British ‘Daily Telegraph’ newspaper even claimed that Coke, like fizzy rival Red Bull, could buy a grand prix team — but the more likely option is a title sponsorship.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone ‘confirmed’ that Coca-Cola had shown some interest in the sport, the newspaper wrote. ”F1 has become an exceptional shop window for everybody,” the 74-year-old said.
The report doubted that Coca-Cola had yet held talks with any team, but an executive ‘with links’ to the company revealed: ”The growing popularity of F1 in several key Asian markets is something that is of interest.”
Probably at the front of the queue for Coca-Cola’s business is Williams, the front line Grove based team that is determined to recover from the recent loss of works BMW power and title sponsor HP.
Formula One, Auto Racing, Sports
The reports I’ve read stated they were exploring buying a team, starting a team, or just sponsoring a team. If there are any business people running that company that vote for either buying or starting an F1 team they should all be fired with extreme predjudice. Send them back to business school and have them develop a case study of Ford’s recent failure in F1. And they were car people for god’s sake!!
Sponsoring a team like Williams would be super, everything else would be a disaster.
If Coke does jump into F1 I would guess it would be as primary sponsor. And it makes sense it would be with Williams considering Frank is conducting a fire sale of sorts.
I haven’t posted anything yet, I just read the story, but Honda just announced it was buying out BAR and will be the sole owner.
So now that Honda is “Buttonized,” the teamm goes into full Samarai mode.