Is Lewis Hamilton’s $500 Million Move Forcing Ferrari to Sign a Title Sponsor?

“Sure every driver has his value and you want to be respected but again money is not something that drives me.”- Lewis Hamilton. Lewis Hamilton was the highest-paid F1 driver for multiple years before Max Verstappen overtook him in recent years. Also, the rumors of Mercedes not offering the 7X champ, the ambassadorial role being one of the breaking points as to why the Brit signed with Ferrari. 

Regardless, Hamilton’s quote still stands as Mercedes’ performance just keeps on getting worse by the year whereas Ferrari is improving massively.   But we cannot ignore the fact that Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari comes with a huge monetary benefit, which is good for the Briton, but will cost Ferrari a huge load of money. Is this forcing Ferrari to sign a title sponsor? What exactly did Ferrari promise Lewis Hamilton?

John Elkann and Ferrari’s $500 Million Promise to Lewis Hamilton

Just the rumors of Lewis Hamilton signing with Ferrari shook the stock markets around the world, where the share value of Ferrari went by 5-9%, depending on the stock market. Once the news was finally confirmed, details of the contract came out. Lewis Hamilton is once again going to be the highest-paid driver with a salary of $100 Million. And that’s not all, Lewis Hamilton is also rumored to be staying with Ferrari post his racing career and will join the team as an ambassador.

Who wouldn’t want to be connected to a team like Ferrari after retirement? Also, Ferrari’s President John Elkann promised the 7X champ that he would invest $400 Million into Lewis Hamilton’s charity and charitable initiative. So in total, a huge dent of $500 million for Ferrari. Obviously, John Elkann isn’t paying out of his own pocket so the F1 team needs to arrange for these financials. And this is where the title sponsorship comes in. 

Ferrari’s Rumored Title Sponsorship with Hewlett Packard 

While Mercedes has Petronas as their title sponsor and Red Bull has Oracle, Ferrari hasn’t had a title sponsor for the last couple of years. Their last title sponsor was Mission Winnow, who ended the title sponsorship after the 2021 season. Mission Winnow is an initiative by Philip Morris, the same company that owns Marlboro. Ferrari has enjoyed the monetary benefits of the Marlboro sponsorship for many years, and Mission Winnow was just an extension of the same, finding a loophole in the sponsorship rules, since F1 banned Tobacco sponsorships. 

However, after F1 made the rules stricter, Mission Winnow disappeared from the Ferrari altogether in 2023. And Ferrari was just known as Scuderia Ferrari. But now rumors have started popping up suggesting Ferrari are close to signing a new title sponsor. After two long years without a title sponsor, Hewlett Packard (HP) has come out as Ferrari’s rumored title sponsor, as suggested by Sportbusiness.com.

According to sources, the deal is said to be worth the same as Red Bull’s deal with Oracle, which is $500 million which is split into $100 Million over 5 years. But what a coincidence that it’s the same amount as what Ferrari promised Lewis Hamilton. So the question that remains now is whether signing Lewis Hamilton is the reason Ferrari’s going for a title sponsorship.

Is Lewis Hamilton the reason behind Ferrari’s Title Sponsorship with Hewlett-Packard? 

While $500 Million is a huge sum of money, and Ferrari must be scratching their heads on how to provide the same to Hamilton, signing a sponsorship just for the sake of money is never an answer, it’s just an added benefit of it. Look at Aston Martin who signed Aramco as their title sponsor this season, it’s just not for the sponsorship money that the Saudi Arabian Oil giant will bring, but also the fuel technology they bring as F1 mandates 100% synthetic fuel for the 2026 regulations.

Technology’s importance is more important than anything else at the current moment in F1, especially with the 2026 regulations incoming, which’ll increase the electrical capacity of the Power unit as well the number of electrical components in the F1 car, computing the data becomes that much crucial. Just like Red Bull’s technical partnership with Oracle, Ferrari is also expected to collaborate with HP on a similar basis. 

Yet, one cannot look away from the fact that HP is bringing in a huge sum of money. While Lewis Hamilton directly didn’t force Ferrari to sign a title sponsor, the Maranello-based team must’ve been thinking about getting some sort of financial help for the same. HP presented itself as a sponsor and Scuderia probably grabbed the opportunity, looking at both the technical and financial benefit of it. 

The only left now to see is when Ferrari makes the official announcement and how the logo of HP will look on the Ferrari.