Christian Horner has lost a key sponsor for the 2025 season (Image: Getty)
and crypto exchange Bybit have parted ways after a three-year contract came to an end ahead of the 2025 season. The deal was worth £119million ($150m) in total, making the company one of the Milton Keynes-based team’s biggest financial backers.
After won the 2021 Drivers’ Championship title following a titanic battle with , benefitted from a wealth of new sponsors. Among these deals was a £400m ($500m) title sponsorship deal with Oracle and the aforementioned contract with Bybit.
When the deal was announced, team principal said: “I’m delighted to welcome Bybit to the Team. It’s fitting too that, as we enter a new generation of competition of F1 in 2022, with an advanced and potentially game-changing new philosophy of cars taking to the track, that Bybit also exist at the cutting edge of technology.
“They share the Team’s passion to exist at the forefront of technological innovation, to set the competitive pace and to disrupt the status quo. Allied to that is Bybit’s commitment to enlivening the fan experience in F1 through digital innovation.
“This is also a key mission for the Team, and Bybit’s assistance will help us build a deeper, more immersive and unique connection with the team for fans around the world.”
Unfortunately for the chief, that deal has now ended, leaving a significant hole in the team’s finances for the upcoming 2025 campaign. The loss of key sponsors has been compounded by the financial hit of ’s on-track decline.
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Bybit featured on the RB20’s front wing (Image: Getty)
The Milton Keynes squad went into the 2024 campaign as reigning back-to-back constructors’ champions but finished the season in third place behind both and , due largely to the struggles of in the team’s second seat.
Both of those teams gained a wealth of new corporate sponsors off the back of their success in 2024. announced a major title sponsorship with Hewlett-Packard, while ’s impressive sponsor drive continued, gaining the likes of Mastercard and Ecolab, and extending their deal with Google.
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If Horner and can’t recover in 2025, they could lose an even bigger part of their success – Verstappen. “I think the relationship that Max has with the team, you can see there’s a great amount of trust there,” the team principal said at the end of the 2024 season.
“It’s down to us to deliver and I’m sure that we’ll provide him a car that he can fight again for the championship next year. I’ve got no doubt about that. I don’t think it’s going to be easy, but it won’t be easy for any of the teams. And I think there’s a lot of lessons that we’ve taken out of this year.”