HP is everything that’s wrong with sports sponsorship – Taking a Pen. – thoughts of a small-time sports writer

I have no doubt that when Ferrari’s F1 team inked its sponsorship deal with HP, there will have been much mention in the surrounding PR hullabaloo of ‘partnership’.

There always is whenever big business seizes upon sport as an advertising hoarding. ‘Proud partners’, ‘Proud to partner with…’ etc., etc. As if the sport and sponsor are lifelong besties who’ve suddenly decided to put their relationship on a formal footing.

Except, as HP will forcibly demonstrate at this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, the relationship is nothing of the sort.

True partners, after all, get to know each other. They weigh up what makes the other guy tick; what his vibe happens to be, and they accommodate each other, not wanting to let the small stuff get in the way of a good friendship.

What they don’t do is go marching into the relationship and send repeated subliminal messages that it’s ‘my way or the highway’. I’m watching a hapless Kiwi lass make that mistake on Married at First Sight Australia at present and I suspect it won’t end well.

You might want to take a look at some of Ferrari’s other sponsors on this weekend’s car, HP. Shell, Ray-Ban, Peroni. All of them happy to make do with just their name on the car, so that one of Formula One’s enduring traditions can continue unabated.

Ferraris are predominantly red. It’s just the way things are done around here.

But what do you care, eh, HP? Even if you did get the memo, it probably went straight into the bin. Because you know better, of course.

You’ve blithely marched into a sport about which you seem to know nothing beyond what a few episodes of Drive to Survive taught you, you’re apparently oblivious to its culture and traditions and you’ve effectively hung a Banksy on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. Just to perk things up a bit.

Planet F1 has done you a kindness you don’t deserve by calling the livery ‘blue-accented’. It is blue-dominated. Aesthetics sacrificed on the altar of ROI.

And if you think this is just some reactionary dinosaur kicking off, I suggest you search ‘Ferrari, HP’ on X. And brace yourselves.

This isn’t a partnership; it’s a borderline abusive relationship, and shame on Ferrari — not exactly short of a bob or two — for lacking the gonads to tell you where you can stick a level of philistinism that’s remarkable even by corporate standards.

I’ve been a happy customer of yours since 2013, HP. Never again. And even as a tifoso (I’m sure your marketing department will need to look that up) I can tell you this. If both Ferraris spin out on the first lap on Sunday, I will see it as karma.

And I will laugh like a drain at Ferrari’s calamity and your truncated airtime. Because right now the two of you deserve each other.