Good morning.
I experienced my first Formula 1 in Las Vegas this past weekend, thanks to an invitation from HP CEO Enrique Lores to moderate a series of conversations with him, CEO attendees and the drivers of the Scuderia Ferrari HP Formula 1 team: Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc, who placed third and fourth respectively. (When I asked Sainz and Leclerc to describe each other’s strengths, I got the sense that Sainz was a smoother driver while Leclerc was more aggressive, though it was hard to tell as they ribbed each other.)
Lores says HP became the team’s title sponsor earlier this year because of the sport’s 10-month season and reliance on technology: Ferrari’s F1 team has 1,600 people who measure success a thousandth of a second at a time. Ferrari now deploys some HP technology and services as part of the partnership. As Lores put it: “We both have these brands with a long history of innovation.”
It helps, of course, that F1 has become more popular with U.S. audiences following a Netflix series, new movies, an expanding F1 Arcade franchise, celebrity investors and crossover stars like Lewis Hamilton, who will join the Ferrari team next season, displacing Sainz. Along with the drivers and cars being literal billboards for a range of brands, F1 is often a loss leader for car manufacturers that want to wow elite customers.
Few are more prestigious than Ferrari, which sells cars that can average $750,000 and have a two-year waiting list to receive. I recently spoke with Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna, who spoke about the company like one speaks about family. Vigna compares Ferrari to “a compressed spring with a lot of energy,” with “a team that has this passion, sense of belonging, determination, and grit.” While some customers are “more in love with motorsports—in the U.S., Italy, Germany, UK, and Japan,” Vigna adds, clients in South Korea or the Middle East are more drawn to luxury and lifestyle.
The same might be said of HP, which is trying to take pole position in a fast-changing future of work where people print less but its AI computers could mean a lot more. How it’s doing on that front will become clearer when HP reports its 4th quarter earnings tomorrow. And having a high-profile sponsorship of a fast-growing sport can’t hurt. As Lores joked when handing Sainz and Leclerc two computers, he might not know their favorite track but “I do know your new favorite computer.”
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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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