Williams F1 Signs Anthropic, Barclays and Klaviyo Without Winning

The Atlassian Williams Formula 1 team has signed sponsorship deals with Anthropic, Barclays and Wilkinson Sword this year despite not winning a constructors' championship since 1997. Peter Kenyon, Williams' board advisor for commercial and marketing functions and former CEO of Manchester United and Chelsea FC, says the team does not sell partnerships on performance.

"We all care about winning," Kenyon told Marketing Brew in New York ahead of the United States Grand Prix in Austin last month. "But that's not what we sell partnerships on. We've been honest. You've got to be honest…[Our partners] believe in where we're going to be."

Williams holds nine constructors' championships across its 50-year history, most recently in 1997 — a drought now stretching past two decades. Last month the team named martech company Klaviyo an official partner from next season. Williams attributed increased revenue to sponsorship growth in its 2025 annual financial report.

What does Kenyon mean by "partnership" rather than sponsorship?

The difference, he said, is that Williams actually uses its partners' products and services. Klaviyo, for instance, will serve as Williams' B2C CRM platform to help grow the team's fanbase, an effort that parallels other sports organizations — the NFL and MLS among them — turning to fan data for business growth.

Storytelling matters most for a team not currently winning. Pitching on long-term potential is a strategy that worked for McLaren, which won back-to-back constructors' championships in 2024 and 2025 after a nearly 30-year drought. Comeback stories make strong content and case studies demonstrating a product's value.

"We're not selling performance," Kenyon said. "It's a key component, it will come, we will be a multiple world champion, but…I've won with not the best team, and I've lost with the best team."

He set two targets: profitability by 2028 and championship contention by 2030.

How is F1 fandom different from the Premier League?

Kenyon's remit also covers growing the Williams fanbase itself, and he says the task differs sharply from English football. "The [F1] fanbase is not tribal," he said. "The cross-section of fans is enormous," he added, noting that at many races families — or even individuals — support multiple teams at once. "No relegation," he joked, citing the other big difference.

That absence of single-team loyalty is an opportunity. Williams aims to recruit new followers through audience research and segmentation, and Kenyon said brand partners can help with audience development even outside the martech space.

Will the next partners be consumer brands?

F1 has long attracted B2B companies, but a diversifying fandom has brought a growing number of B2C brands into the sport. Williams recently worked with Marvel to tap comics fandom.

The team is deliberately targeting more consumer brands going forward. "I'm pretty sure you'll see our next partnerships will come from more consumer brands," Kenyon said. "Our brand people come from McDonald's, and Lego, and Pepsi, so we built internal skill sets that mean that we can talk to global consumer brands in the same language."

With profitability targeted for 2028 and a title shot for 2030, Williams' commercial pitch rests on honesty about the present and belief in the trajectory — and on a consumer-brand pipeline built to match.