APRIL 5, 2003

McLaren bids for HSBC sponsorship

The West McLaren Mercedes team has recently made a bid to land sponsorship from Jaguar Racing's major sponsor HSBC. The move was never likely to be very successful as HSBC's deal with Jaguar is part of a much bigger arrangement between the bank and Jaguar's parent the Ford Motor Company. Such a deal would not be easy for Mercedes-Benz because the company is still partially owned by the giant German financial institution Deutsche Bank.

We understand that Jaguar management was not very impressed by the approach although all Jaguar's sporting director John Hogan would say was "no comment".

Several teams have also been pitching for sponsorship from Orange but we understand that the France Telecom-owned mobile phone company has decided to get out of F1 because of the economic problems that France Telecom has been struggling with.