Ron Dennis Says Title Sponsorship No Longer Truly Exists

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Ron Dennis believes the days of heavily involved, high-paying title sponsors in F1 are over.

His McLaren team have been without a primary sponsor since their deal with Vodafone, reported by The Telegraph to be worth $75 million per year, expired at the end of 2013.

Dennis told media in March 2014 the team would "definitely" feature a title sponsor after a few races; it failed to materialise.

Now, he says such relationships no longer exist in modern F1. He is quoted by Autosport, saying:

Title sponsorship doesn't exist any more as a concept. If you look at what title sponsorship would normally be, it would be somewhere between 40-50 per cent of your budget.

Where the budgets are for a competitive team, no company will come in and give you that kind of money. Therefore what you do is you cut it up into bite-sized pieces, so you get a range of companies with similar philosophies to join you on the car.

Do we have room for bigger brands on our cars? Yes we do. But the reality is that we put ourselves in a position where the technology side of our business is providing different dynamics [of revenue].

Dennis went on to repeat something he has been saying for a while—that the team's lack of recent success should not push down the value of space on the McLaren car. This suggests they have had offers, but declined them as they were considered too low.

While a major sponsor providing up to half the team's budget is indeed a thing of the past, title sponsorship itself is still hanging on. Mercedes have Petronas, Red Bull have Infiniti and Williams have Martini.

But it is becoming less and less common, largely due to the end of tobacco sponsorship. In 1995, nine of the 13 teams featured a title sponsor. The figure was eight from 11 in 2000, falling to five from 10 in 2005 and four from 12 in 2010.

It looks like being three from nine or 10 this season, but could still be four. Per Autosport, Dennis hinted at the start of the month his team may make a change to their 2015 livery if a big sponsor arrives.

Maybe it'll actually happen this year.