Inside Formula 1: Business. Lifestyle. Power.
Brian Sims
Brian Sims is one of international sports most experienced and successful sponsorship acquisition exponents, originally for his own professional racing career, before acquiring the ground-breaking multi-million-pound deals that brought FedEx, Marconi and Gillette into F1 for the first time. He then became the Commercial Director of the Benetton F1 Team, until its sale in 2001 to Renault.
Brian was s the Founder in 1994 of the prestigious Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) and is now one of just 4 Honorary Life Members of the Association. In 2018 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Birmingham City University, recognising his outstanding contribution to the UK motorsport industry.
On behalf of the World Academy of Sport, Brian has run many training courses on sponsorship acquisition for World Rugby, the International Cricket Council, Bahrain Olympic Committee and other global sports associations, as well as for the BRDC, Porsche and Ford.
In recent years, Brian has been in high demand as a Guest Speaker, talking about his fascinating 47-year career in motorsport, whilst his current on-line mentoring services on the topic of sponsorship acquisition are proving extremely popular.
His highly acclaimed autobiography entitled “You Don’t Have To be a Champion to be a Winner!” was recently published in paperback.
His website is: www.brian-sims.com
Engineers of the future
Back in April 1994, at the London UK Head Office of Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), the Motorsport Industry Association was launched. There were many reasons why I felt that such an organisation was long overdue, the primary one being a…
Why we should be worried
Brian has been a solid regular contributor at the Paddock magazine since 2013, and his “Money, Egos & Speed” columns are always very well-received by our readers. This time we’ve decided to put the spotlight on Brian himself, so we…
The William Hewland experience
I can still remember how bitterly cold it was that day in November 1972, with an easterly wind howling across the bleak open expanses of the Snetterton motor racing circuit. None of that mattered to the twelve young guys huddled…
If I Ran F1: Brian Sims
The first article Brian wrote for Paddock magazine was an “If I Ran F1” feature in early 2013. Since then he has become a regular contributor, so we decided to ask him to do the feature again. With over 40…
The tide definitely did turn…
Towards the end of 2014, in my feature called “The Tide is Turning“, I looked at the issues facing many talented young single-seater racing drivers trying to make their way to Formula 1. Many of these drivers were feeling pretty…
The “Money, Egos & Speed” Awards 2015
Now’s the time when the yawn-inducing BBC Sports Personality of the Year programme hits our screens and frequent visits to the weather-forecast sites become the norm when planning business trips. Also, no one seems to be immune from “My Top…
Securing a sponsorship deal: Finding out what’s important
Annually for the past three years, the British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) has invited me to deliver a training course on the topic of sponsorship acquisition. The audience has mainly included drivers from the Club’s Superstar and Rising Star programmes,…
Status Quo… great on stage, not in motorsport!
I was pleased to receive a very positive response to my recent Money, Egos & Speed feature named “Are we brave enough for a new approach?” You may recall that in the article I put forward a few ideas, some…
Sponsorship acquisition – what’s going wrong?
Here we are already over the halfway point of the season. Thankfully, the Hungarian Grand Prix provided a glimpse of what Formula 1 is capable of delivering when everything comes together. Let’s just hope for the same degree of unpredictability…
New blood to fuel change at Lotus
New blood… They say “nostalgia isn’t what it used to be”, but I must admit that I felt nostalgic as recently as I drove through the beautiful but narrow country lanes that lead from the small historic Oxfordshire town of…
