F1 manufacturer announced as new Sky F1 sponsor in surprise deal

Incoming F1 2026 manufacturer Audi has been named as the official sponsor of the Sky Sports F1 channel ahead of the F1 2025 season.

Audi will officially arrive on the grid next year having recently confirmed to PlanetF1.com that it has completed its full takeover of the existing Sauber team.

Audi to sponsor Sky F1 ahead of highly anticipated 2026 entry

In an unusual move, the German manufacturer will sponsor the Sky F1 channel in a three-year deal commencing on Tuesday (February 18).

It comes ahead of F1’s first-ever season-launch event, attended by all 10 teams and 20 drivers, at London’s O2 Arena on Tuesday evening.

Tony Moore, Head of Marketing at Audi UK, said: “Innovative engineering has always been an Audi trademark, especially embodied in our range of performance cars.

“We’re excited to launch our partnership with Sky Sports Formula 1, the perfect platform through which to celebrate Vorsprung durch Technik”

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Karin Seymour, Director of Client & Marketing at Sky Media, added: “Our partnership with Audi is truly multi-faceted.

“F1 has become one of the fastest-growing sports, with an increasingly diverse and engaged fan base driving record TV viewership and online engagement.

“As partners to Sky Sports F1, we’re helping Audi connect with this new wave of fans and be at the heart of the conversation.”

Audi F1 announced last November that the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar had acquired a minority stake in the Formula 1 team.

Qatar Airways, owned by the government of Qatar, has been a long-term backer of the long-running Sky News television channel.

The F1 2024 season proved a controversial one for Sky F1, with a number of pundits drawn into a war of words with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.

Damon Hill, the 1996 World Champion, likened Verstappen to Dick Dastardly, the villain in the children’s cartoon Wacky Races, after the Red Bull driver was hit with two 10-second penalties for separate clashes with Lando Norris, the British driver racing for McLaren, during the Mexican Grand Prix in October.

Hill’s fellow pundit Martin Brundle also criticised Verstappen, claiming the 27-year-old’s unsporting conduct in wheel-to-wheel battle risks tainting his F1 legacy.

Hill announced his departure from Sky F1 weeks later, having joined the broadcaster in early 2012, with now-ex FIA steward and former Sky F1 pundit Johnny Herbert later revealing that the 64-year-old was left “very unhappy” by the public response to his views.

Verstappen took aim at the British media after his impressive victory at the following race in Brazil, pointing out a shortage of UK journalists in the post-race press conference at Interlagos after Norris’s title hopes suffered a fatal blow.

Verstappen’s father, the former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, later claimed that the negative treatment by the British media had fuelled his son’s desire to prove his critics wrong in Brazil.

Sky F1 was previously boycotted by Red Bull and Verstappen at the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix after taking exception to comments made by pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz.

Kravitz had remarked that Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was “robbed” of the World Championship at the controversial F1 2021 title decider in Abu Dhabi, where Verstappen claimed his maiden World Championship.

Sky F1 has held the live Formula 1 broadcast rights in the United Kingdom since 2012, with the marque’s current deal due to expire at the end of the 2029 season.

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