The 2023 F2 season saw Invicta Watch Group and F2 team Virtuosi Racing team up for a multi-year title sponsorship deal, renaming the outfit Invicta Virtuosi Racing and establishing a new working relationship between the parties.
Invicta, an American watch company, has a history of working with iconic sports brands, including a collaboration with basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, but the Virtuosi deal its first title sponsorship deal.
The relationship also sees Invicta’s presence in motorsport continue to grow following its partnership with F2 driver Juan Manuel Correa, who is a brand ambassador.
The deal sees the brand link up with the long-time junior series stalwarts, led by founders Andy Roche, Paul Devlin and Declan Lohan, who are running Alpine Academy junior Jack Doohan and Amaury Cordeel in the 2023 season.
The partnership marks an exciting new chapter for both brands, but what was it which attracted Invicta to an F2 team?
CEO Eyal Lalo told Autosport that motorsport has always been “a key vision and lifestyle that the brand has always had,” but previous attempts to enter F1 had proven to be too costly for the benefits received.
Looking for a more expansive and flexible strategy, he turned to the junior series, where he saw “a great void in that industry right now when it comes to consumer brands connected with F2.”
“I think we're the first, I feel that we're a pioneer in having a vision that is very distinctive to what everybody else is looking at,” he said. “F2 to me looks like still a stepping stone to the world of F1 and that's how it is, and I'm referring to F2 and F3. I personally had a chance to visit a lot of F2 races and seeing how little the marketing is done, the appreciation to the sport is received within the consumers.
“When you look at an F2 team, they're just focused on the mechanics and the performance and what drivers they put in there, but nobody's looking at the fact that there's an actual clean slate of marketing that can be done because they are racing on the same track, on the same weekend as F1.
Source: Autosport