Marussia partners with Reading club

The reason for the association between Marussia and the Reading football club is already more obvious than that between Sauber and Chelsea. Indeed, both share the peculiarity of being a sports enterprise based in the United Kingdom but owned by funds from Russia, since Marussia is a Russian sports car brand while Reading is owned by the Russian entrepreneur Anton Zingarevich.

The new partnership will include two distinct components. The first involves a traditional commercial and marketing aspect. Each team will provide exposure to the other. This began this weekend at Silverstone with the appearance of the “Royals” logo, the nickname of the Reading team, on the engine cover of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton’s cars.

But the second part has a greater impact on the functioning of the two teams. Indeed, it directly affects the health of the drivers and players through a collaborative program on nutrition and physical training, two essential concepts in managing professional athletes.

The program is summarized by Andy Webb, the CEO of the team: « We are delighted to be able to announce our partnership with Reading FC at the British Grand Prix. Obviously, next year, we will have two home races with our move to Sochi for the first Russian Grand Prix. But right now, we are a team owned by Russians on British territory, which is the basis of our agreement to create synergies with our friends at Reading FC. With F1, we are able to combine our love of racing with our strategic business objectives for the Marussia brand, but we are also a sport among sports in general. So obviously, we are inclined to learn from other sports entities and what they can learn from Formula 1. This is part of our ambition to share our team and Formula 1 with the widest possible audience. »

It is thus interesting to note that the two biggest sports on a global scale have been trying for years to multiply synergies, the most complete outcome of which was the now-defunct SuperLeague Formula, which aimed to have single-seaters race in the colors of certain clubs to try to reach fans of both sports.

We will see if this new partnership will generate more media coverage than the past one between Sauber and Chelsea, which, on the surface, is limited to a few signs of encouragement before major events for the other team.

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr