Martini & Rossi announced yesterday that it will be joining the F1 team as a sponsor this year, and this morning the Italian drinks concern will be unveiled on the flanks for Ferrari’s new F1 car. Martini & Rossi thus becomes the second high-profile sponsor to make it known that it is joining the team in a matter of days, as IT giant Acer committed itself to Ferrari on Friday.

Martini & Rossi is one of motorsport’s most famous and long standing sponsors, with involvement in disciplines including Formula 1, WRC, endurance racing and touring cars. The firm’s long involvement in high-level motor racing actually began back in 1968 with the lifting of sponsorship restrictions in the sport, when the firm’s German distributor sponsored a Porsche 906, and gathered pace the next year when the company acquired two Porsche 907 sportscars, the ‘69 season ending with Martini & Rossi sponsoring no fewer than eight cars, and visiting the endurance racing winners’ circle for the first time. For 1971 the factory Martini Racing Porsche team switched to the legendary 917 and victory at Le Mans was achieved on their way to winning the World Sportscar Championship for the German marque.

At the end of 1971, Martini & Rossi were forced to withdraw from endurance racing, as Porsche did not have a replacement for the 917, required under new FIA regulations, ready to compete. Instead, an ill-fated attempt at Formula 1 followed in 1972 with the Bologna-based Tecno team. New to F1, Techno signed up Derek Bell and Nanni Galli, but the team were clearly out of their depth and, despite a sixth place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix for New Zealander Chris Amon, Martini & Rossi terminated their involvement with the team at the end of the ‘73 season. Also during that year, Martini & Rossi also began a long involvement in offshore powerboat racing, beginning their water-based involvement by sponsoring the famous 30-foot ‘Cigarette’ racers.

In that same year, Martini & Rossi returned to sportscar racing with the Porsche Carrera RS, a successful programme to be followed in later years by the 911SC and Le Mans-winning 936. Meanwhile, 1975 saw them venturing back into F1 with Bernie Ecclestone’s British-based Brabham team. The Cosworth-powered Brabham BT44B chassis was piloted by South America’s Carlos Reutemann and Carlos Pace that year, and it was to turn out to be Martini & Rossi’s most successful F1 season, Reutemann and Pace securing third and sixth in the drivers’ championship, whilst Brabham achieved third place in the constructors’ series. In 1976, as well as switching from Martini’s traditional white paintwork to a distinctive red, Brabham turned to Italian marque Alfa Romeo for their engine supply, but the partnership was unsuccessful and so, after departing Brabham at the end of 1977, Martini Racing stepped in to replace the legendary ‘John Player Special’ insignia on the flanks of Lotus’ new ‘wingless’ Formula 1 contender, the 80, in 1979. It was to be a difficult season for the British Racing Green cars, however, although Carlos Reutemann did manage to claim sixth place in the drivers’ championship.

At the end of that year Martini & Rossi took the decision to leave F1 behind, and again concentrate on long-distance sportscar racing with the Porsche 935 and 936, and rallying with the 911. The silhouette Porsche 935, which was nicknamed the 'Moby Dick' due to its long tail fins and 750bhp turbocharged engine, dominated sportscar racing that year, in the hands of Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass.

The end of 1980 saw the birth of the now-famous partnership between Martini Racing and Lancia. Replacing the striking factory ‘psychedelic zebra’ livery, the contract was signed just days before the famous Giro d’Italia in early November, and the new partnership started out in triumph. The Beta Montecarlo Group 5, with the aid of a star-studded driver lineup, claimed first (Riccardo Patrese and Markku Alén) and second (Michele Alboreto and Attilio Bettega) places on its debut in Martini colours. By clever use of cars running in different classes, the Martini Lancia team managed to steal the World Endurance Championship from Porsche in 1981, as they had done the previous year.
 

This relationship continued throughout Lancia’s involvement in Group 6 and then Group C endurance sportscar racing with the LC1 and LC2, but the level of success was never the same as with the Beta Montecarlo and Lancia’s official involvement with the endurance racing ended at the end of 1985.

Meanwhile, Martini Racing had also decided to follow up their offshore powerboat successes by moving into the inshore Formula 1 Powerboat World Championship for the first time in 1982. The legendary sportsman Renato Molinari was lined up for this challenge running alongside former Formula 2 and Formula 3 champion Carlo Maria Colombo, with the Italian boat-builder eventually missing out on the title by just one point, although he claimed the European Sprint trophy. 

That same year, Martini Racing consolidated its relationship with Lancia, but this time on the world’s rally stages. Representing arguably the firm’s best-known involvement in the sport, this would be a long-standing partnership which would go on to yield seven manufacturers’ titles (six of them consecutively from 1987-92) and four drivers’ crowns (two for Italian Miki Biasion, and two for Finn Juha Kankkunen), covering cars as diverse as the Rally 037, Delta S4 and Delta Integrale. At the end of 1991 when Lancia officially withdrew from rallying, Martini Racing continued to support the Integrales, now run by the Jolly Club and driven by Kankkunen, Italian Andrea Aghini and Frenchman Didier Auriol. This partnership also spawned special editions of roadgoing Lancias, including the Y10, Delta HF Turbo and Delta Integrale. 

On the world stage, the partnership between Martini Racing and Lancia ended at the close of the 1992 season, but Martini & Rossi continued to sponsor Deltas running in the Italian rally championship. From an international perspective, however, the firm was once again concentrating on road racing, sponsoring the Alfa Romeo 155 GTAs in the Italian Touring Car Championship from 1992 onwards, forming a highly successful partnership which swept all before them. Staying with Alfa Romeo in tin-tops, 1995 saw Martini Racing stepping up a gear to sponsor the factory Alfa 155 V6 TI racers of Nicola Larini and Sandro Nannini in the high-tech 1995 DTM series, taking on the challenge of the factory-supported Mercedes-Benz and Opel teams. Unfortunately, the Alfa 155s had by this stage lost their competitive edge, and the deal only lasted until the end of 1996, as Alfa Romeo and Opel’s withdrawal from the newly-international ITC saw the series’ subsequent collapse due to a lack of manufacturer involvement. 

Martini Racing’s most recent high-profile sponsorship has been a four-year programme with the official Ford team in the FIA World Rally Championship. Rally stars such as Colin McRae, Thomas Radstrom, Carlos Sainz and Markko Martin all pedalled the red and blue-striped Focus WRC cars between 1999 and 2002.