BMC is expanding its partnership with the Red Bull Formula 1 team. What started as a technical collaboration back in 2018 has become a full partnership between the bike builder and the Oracle Red Bull Racing Team. That Offical Partner status will put the team’s F1 drivers on BMC bikes on and off the track. It will also see athletes on the cycle and car side together on events.
Swiss cycle brand BMC and Red Bull Advanced Technologies – Red Bull Racing’s engineering division – joined together in 2018. The goal was to work on bringing F1 tech to the cycling experience. After two years of research and development, including Red Bull engineers teaching computational fluid dynamics techniques to BMC staff, the partnership entered the prototype stage.
So after four years together, BMC becoming an Offical Partner of Red Bull Racing and expanding the relationship seems like a logical next step. Especially on the marketing side.
Red Bull Racing gets new pit rides
The deal will put Red Bull Racing drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez on BMC bikes. They’ll use the bikes for rides to learn and scout race tracks and training. The drivers and Red Bull crew will use BMC bicycles trackside. That includes getting its people around in the paddock on race weekends.
Red Bull team staff will also use BMC’s bikes to get around the Red Bull Technology Campus in Milton Keynes, UK, the factory where the F1 cars are designed and built.
Brand activities that include the F1 team’s drivers and other BMC brand athletes will start soon. The first of these brand-building exercises will commence in a few weeks. BMC is teasingly saying the announcement will happen at “one of the world’s biggest sporting events.” With multiple big F1 and cycling events in April, we’ll have to wait and see which one gets the announcement.
The CEOs of each company are focused on different parts of the partnership.
“Taking what has been an ongoing and inspiring high-tech collaboration between BMC and Red Bull Racing to the next level allows us to elevate our performance and engineering capabilities and inspire both our fans and riders to ‘Create Speed,'” said BMC CEO David Zurcher, focusing on the tech side of the arrangement.
While at Red Bull Racing, CEO Christian Horner talks about the benefits of more visibility and engagement. “We have been working closely with BMC for almost four years and the application of Formula 1 technologies to performance cycling has yielded impressive results. Now we are building on that success to encompass a new partnership that increases visibility, enhances engagement, and connects fans of cycling and motorsport in innovative ways,” the team boss said.
