On Friday, the Alpine F1 team announced that former Aston Martin sponsor BWT has joined the team as a title sponsor.
Alpine F1 has entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Austrian water treatment company BWT, a former RacingPoint/Aston Martin sponsor.
The title sponsorship agreement, which will see Alpine’s blue cars sport shades of pink on their bodywork this season, was thought to be in the works, but the Enstone squad confirmed it on Friday.
This comes after Aston Martin confirmed that Otmar Szafnauer will step down as team principal in early January, prompting speculation that BWT might follow suit, with Alpine as their destination. Szafnauer was also rumored to be moving to Alpine, but nothing official has been announced in this regard.
Alpine has pledged to use BWT’s iconic pink branding “to disseminate the message of sustainability and social responsibility around the world, leveraging the combined worldwide platforms of Formula 1 and the automobile sector,” according to the company.
“We are excited to announce that BWT will be the title partner for Alpine F1 Team for the next years,” said Cédric Journel, Alpine’s sales and marketing vice president.
“Both Alpine’s and BWT’s sustainability agendas are fully aligned on eliminating single use plastics and we are pleased to join forces to convince many people around the globe, our employees, partners, customers and fans to reduce plastic waste.”
“In parallel we will use the huge global platform F1 provides to support BWT in their fight against the unfair distribution of clean, safe and healthy drinking water.”
Lutz Hübner, CMO of BWT, said: “We are proud to become part of BWT Alpine F1 Team as its title partner.
“With our unique and patented water treatment technologies and Alpine’s large global following, we can help to ‘Change the world – sip by sip’.
“The first stage will be to create BWT Bottle Free Zones across all the Alpine factories and at race events. The joining of forces to increase awareness, as well as to fight for sustainability, aligns BWT and Alpine perfectly.”
Alpine has been going through major changes including a management shake-up, which saw Executive Director Marcin Budkowski and team advisor and non-executive board member Alain Prost both resigning. However, the management restructure has received a lot of controversy after Prost claimed his ouster was conducted without due process.
Alpine have retained Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon as their drivers for 2022 as they seek a replacement for Marcin Budkowski with Szafnauer still being seen as the prospective candidate for the role.
