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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Daniel Moxon

Max Verstappen and Red Bull receive £370m boost in Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes rivalry

Red Bull have secured one of the biggest commercial sponsorship deals in all of sport in what is set to be a huge boost to Max Verstappen 's title hopes against rival Lewis Hamilton.

The team will now be known as Oracle Red Bull Racing after announcing a five-year deal with the technology company on Wednesday.

The news was announced as Red Bull unveiled the livery for its new car ahead of the 2022 Formula 1 season, which gets under way next month.

While financial details were not disclosed in the official announcement, the Associated Press reports it is worth £74m per year for the duration of the agreement.

"We’re all about speed and the speed of response," team principal Christian Horner told AP.

Red Bull unveiled its RB18 car at a reveal show on Wednesday (Getty Images)

"We’re pushing the Oracle technical guys. But they’re responding in the best possible way. And that’s what makes this partnership very exciting."

The cash will go some way to funding the amount of spending Red Bull are permitted to make under F1's salary cap rules.

Each team's spending over the course of a season is capped at £107m, not including driver salaries, with the theoretical premise of giving every team on the grid a level playing field when it comes to spending.

Red Bull believe their deal with Oracle will give them an edge over their competitors when it comes to squeezing every bit of potential out of that cash they are allowed to spend.

"We’ve got a brand new set of regulations, a new technical challenge," Horner added.

"We’ve got financial regulations that are driving and forcing efficiency, which is again where this partnership helps us to make sure that we’re as efficient and productive as we possibly can be."

Red Bull revealed the design of its car on Wednesday, with the model showing off some of the new parameters engineers are required to comply with for the 2022 season.

Those regulations include lower-profile tyres, larger rims, differently-shaped front and rear wings and wheel covers, among other things.

Red Bull have signed a mega-money sponsorship deal ahead of the 2022 F1 season (Getty Images)

Because every team is designing their 2022 cars from scratch to comply with their regulations, no-one is too keen on revealing any secrets they might have too early before the start of the competitive racing action.

With that in mind, Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko has already confirmed that the model revealed to the world on Wednesday isn't necessarily the same car which will take to the track in testing later this month or at the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 20.

"The new car will only be ready shortly before the test in Barcelona," the Austrian told F1 Insider last week.

"From there we will further develop and update the car in Bahrain."

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