Another way to keep sponsors away

The scandal over Nelson Piquet Jr.’s intentional crash at Singapore last year, now resulting in the resignations of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, is the latest and perhaps biggest example of how to make sponsors look at other types of sponsorship engagements.

There’s been so many scandals in F1 over the last few years that it seems the sport is bent on self-destruction. It will survive nonetheless, assuming we can keep skating around an economic meltdown, because F1 provides such a unique value proposition – global audience with many loyal fans, a level of technology like no other sport, fantastic hospitality options for building relationships with customers, and great options for consumer tie-ins. If you need a global platform, F1 delivers that and more.

But the sport needs to clean up its act – not only on the administrative/management side, but now we see there are dubious strategies being used by at least one team. Planet F1 covers the financial risk thusly:

‘RENAULT’S SPONSORS COULD WALK AWAY’

Friday 18th September 2009

Aside from the threat of expulsion or a hefty fine, Renault also face the loss of many of their sponsors in light of the FIA’s race-fixing allegations.

The Anglo/French team stands accused of ordering then driver Nelson Piquet Jr to deliberately crash in last year’s Singapore GP, thereby helping team-mate Fernando Alonso claim the victory.

The team, without recently departed team boss Flavio Briatore and director of engineering Pat Symonds, the men believed to the masterminds behind the plan, will face the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Monday.

Although the departure of Briatore and Symonds may save the team from being booted out of Formula One, Renault could be slapped with a hefty fine, leaving the cash-strapped ahead of next year’s Championship.

And finding sponsors to help cover the bill could be an extremely difficult task for the team while many existing sponsors could walk away.

“This is serious, it’s cheating,” Scott Garrett, a director at sponsorship agency Synergy and former head of marketing at Williams, told The Guardian.

“If you were a sponsor of Renault, would you want to continue with that sponsorship? There will be a reputational damage clause and they would be perfectly within their rights to terminate.”