F1 News: Sources Shut Down Hugo Boss AlphaTauri Rumours

The Hugo Boss sponsorship rumours are false but, a management shuffle and a new name are imminent.

Reports of German Fashion Company Hugo Boss' involvement in a sponsorship deal with AlphaTauri have been dismissed. The name propped up in the early days of August but the fashion company has not commented about any such deal, yet.

Planet F1.com investigated a report that said the Hugo Boss- AlphaTauri was almost set to conclude. However, the findings suggested that the truth is far from what has been claimed. In fact, the report was so distorted that there are doubts if negotiations even took place between the two renowned brands. 

If a company outside of Formula 1 wished to become a title sponsor of a team like AlphaTauri, the price tag of such a deal would be millions of dollars. To give you a real-world example, Mercedes's deal with energy group Petronas is valued at $75 million a year. Consider Oracle's sponsorship of Red Bull and you're looking at a price tag of about $500 million. 

Earlier this year, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko announced that the AlphaTauri team would soon be undergoing a name change due to the management's operations moving closer to Red Bull. However, the new name is still a secret. 

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner declined to comment on the supposed deal with Hugo Boss but he did talk about the path ahead for AlphaTauri. He said:

“We will have a closer working relationship.

"I was asked to identify a couple of candidates to get involved and create a new management team at AlphaTauri.

"The two guys that I felt were right for the role were Peter [Bayer] and Laurent [Mekies], I think they’ll make a strong team.

"I think that the relationship, within the realms of what we’re able to do within the regulations will become closer.

"There are aspects of the car that AlphaTauri haven’t taken advantage of under what’s permitted under the supply rules previously.

"So I can only see the relationship between the two teams becoming ever closer.”

Does this mean that the AlphaTauri cars would be able to tap into areas of performance that were inaccessible earlier? We'll know soon for sure.