Visa entered Formula 1 in 2024 with Red Bull Racing its first new global sports sponsorship agreement in 15 years. But it was a bumpy launch as its entry came with a name mocked as one of the worst in motorsports history.
Didn't matter to Visa, which on Thursday announced a four-year contract extension through 2030 that expands its partnership with Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App Racing Bulls — the team that still doesn't have a clear moniker.
Some
fans call it VCARB, others call it Racing Bulls, and some even say Visa Cash App.
“When people embrace what you’re doing, people will find a way to talk about your name in positive light,” Frank Cooper, chief marketing officer of VISA, told The Associated Press. "Names become affectionate names once people find some kind of close connection to the company, the drivers, the team, and so people have gotten comfortable with it.
“I don’t know anyone has settled on ‘This is exactly what we’re going to call it every single time’ because sometimes people will say the car, sometimes they’ll say Racing Bulls, it’s a little bit all over the place. But I’m comfortable with that because: one, they’re talking about it, and two, the initial response of ‘How do I even say this? What does it mean?’ That’s all gone."
The extension with Red Bull shows how far the partnership has grown over Visa's first two seasons in F1. The new deal encompasses new branding rights, enhanced hospitality options and immersive experiential opportunities across both Red Bull and Racing Bulls.
Visa will continue as the title partner of Red Bull's second team, the two-car effort for Liam Lawson and rookie Arvid Lindblad, as well as the title partner for Racing Bulls' all-female Formula 1 Academy program.
But it also comes with a more prominent branding on the Red Bull cars of four-time world champion Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, who was promoted from Racing Bulls at the end last year. Visa's logo will on the front wing of the new RB22 for 2026.
Visa has also secured exclusive rights within the retail banking category, alongside expanded pass‑through rights.
Essentially, Visa is backing all the cars across all Red Bull teams in F1 and F1 Academy.
Cooper said the contract extension gives Visa more access to the team, its drivers, the paddock and hospitality areas.
"We looked at it from the fan perspective of what do the fans want? What does a client want? Those are the things they want. They want to be close to the access," said Cooper. "They want to feel like they’re part of it. The way we think about it is, being a traditional sponsor means just simply being adjacent to the property that you paid some money for. You get a logo. You’re adjacent to it, you hope to get a halo effect from that adjacency.
“We decided that's fine for those who want to do it that way, but we think we can do more. Our approach is to try to add value to the fan experience and add value to the driver.”
Cooper said he learned from the popularity of the F1 docudrama “Drive To Survive” series that fans want to see the human side of the global racing series and that mindset helped develop one of Visa's more popular campaigns. Visa last year did a #TakeYourDriverToWorkDay event in which Hadjar and Lawson traded the cars for cubicles and participated in onboarding sessions at Visa’s London office.
The two drivers struggled through everyday office rituals in a campaign that was featured across social media and resonated with fans. The series felt a bit like the sitcom “The Office.”
Cooper expects to see more of that as Visa is in the middle of a monstrous year of activation: Visa is key sponsors of the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the upcoming World Cup and Red Bull's F1 team. Visa will also play a prominent role in the Red Bull Showrun Tour that starts in the United States this Saturday with a public exhibition event transforming San Francisco’s Marina Boulevard into an F1‑style demonstration course.
Visa also plans to add a musical element to its F1 activation this summer. Red Bull in 2022 — before Visa came aboard — hosted Bad Bunny at the Miami Grand Prix.
“One thing that has been true for decades is that athletes want to be around musicians and musicians want to be close to athletes,” Cooper said. “The opportunity to cross-pollinate across various cultural pillars and create new experiences is there for us.”
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
