SAP previously had a long involvement with McLaren that ran between 1997-2020 and saw the company involved in F1 world championship titles for Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and 1999, and Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

The company was also a supporter of the now defunct Mercedes Formula E outfit, in an arrangement that began in 2018.

While it hasn’t had a commercial deal, the Mercedes F1 team has been an SAP customer for some time. However the new partnership will give the Brackley outfit access to innovations that will in effect be proof tested before they gain wider use.

Mercedes said SAP will contribute to improving operational efficiency, especially in the context of the cost cap and the extra layers of complexity that the FIA financial regulations have added to running an F1 team.

The team will use SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, which will help it “to explore how artificial intelligence, and cloud solutions from SAP can inform and predict decisions, optimise resources, and future-proof their IT infrastructure”.

With regard to the specific challenges of the cost cap SAP’s AI capabilities will allow the team to “forecast costs, predict the final budget needs, and optimise both the supply chain and stocked items accordingly”.

The team will also use SAP Build and the SAP Business Technology Platform to “bring together a seamless view of data and systems from various sources across the organisation,” which will help to get components to the track faster.

“We have a shared heritage and commitment to innovation and improvement which will meaningfully contribute to our on-track performance,” said team principal Toto Wolff of the new partnership.

“SAP is a global leader in its field, and we could not think of a better partner to help us improve our efficiencies in 2024 and beyond.“

Mercedes F1 chief commercial officer Richard Sanders added: “SAP has a long-standing history of brilliant partnerships with some of the best teams and leagues across elite level sport.

“We are proud to become the latest to join forces with one of the world's leading companies. Their knowledge, expertise, and services will be vital in enabling greater efficiencies within the team.“

Julia White, SAP chief marketing and solutions officer and board member, stressed that F1 was the perfect environment for the company.

“F1 is one of the most technologically innovative sports in the world, where incremental gains yield significant results,” she said.

“Given the extreme conditions under which F1 teams operate, motorsports provide a global platform to showcase skill and engineering excellence. But beyond the race day performance, there's a lot going on behind the scenes.“

The Milton Keynes-based squad delivered one of the most dominant performances in F1 history this season, with its drivers winning 21 out of 22 races and securing both world championship titles quite early.

Its tally of 860 points well eclipsed the previous record haul from a season which was held by Mercedes when it amassed 765 during its 2016 title double.

However, such success does not come without some pain, and in F1 terms it means that Red Bull is facing the biggest official entry fee that a team has ever paid.

Ever since 2013, as part of a revised Concorde Agreement that came into force that year, the FIA has based entry fees for each competitor on the number of points scored in the previous season. This originally started with a base fee of $500,000 plus $5000 per point scored, with the constructors’ champion paying $6000.

This figure has steadily risen due to inflation and for 2024 now stands at $657,837 for the base fee, plus $6575 per point scored for all teams apart from the constructors’ champion which must pay $7893.

Off the back of Red Bull's huge haul this year, it means it must pay $7,445,817 to the FIA by 10 December to have its entry for 2024 confirmed.

The scale of its dominance is clear with second-placed Mercedes, which totted up 409 points, only having to pay $3,347,012, with third-placed Ferrari’s 406 points meaning it must pay $3,327,287.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner admitted that the record-breaking fee his team was paying was eye-watering, but said that it was an inevitable consequence of the scale of success the squad had achieved in 2023.

"I mean, it’s a luxury problem to have because we’ve had to score the points to generate the invoice,” he told Motorsport.com. “Thankfully, it’s outside of the budget cap.

“But, yeah, it’s a big cheque to be writing to the FIA."

Red Bull could have ended up with an even bigger fee if Sergio Perez had delivered more over the campaign, and the team had not missed out on victory at the Singapore Grand Prix.

That Singapore result proved to be the single race that prevented a Red Bull clean sweep this year, but it is something that Horner insisted did not leave the team kicking itself.

Asked if there was a sense of annoyance about missing out on an historic campaign of winning every race, Horner said: “No. It leaves you humbled that there is still something to strive for, and it’s a useful lesson that things can change quickly. Singapore was a standout weekend.

"I never dreamt about it [the clean sweep] and you guys [the media] have been asking me since about race three, ‘Do you think you can win all the races this year?’.

“To win 21 out of the 22 races is insanity. For Max to have led over 1000 laps, for him to have won 19 races, to have broken McLaren’s record from ’88, to have broken Seb’s [Vettel] record from 2013 – the win ratios, all the percentages that he’s hit…

“This car will go down in history certainly for a considerable period of time as the most successful car in Formula 1 history.”

Adrian Newey laughs. The greatest designer in Formula 1 history - the man behind Red Bull's record-breaking championship season this year - is being questioned on the degree of his genius.

He has just been asked about the secrets of his skills in aerodynamic engineering. The question that prompts the mirth? "Is it true you can see the airflow?"

"No, of course not," he replies.

Except, it turns out he can.

"I can picture it," Newey says. "And if I try to be objective, that's perhaps one of my strengths - that I can actually picture things well in my mind's eye."

Newey insists that quality is "certainly not unique - we have got several great engineers now who can also do that". But he believes in his case it was developed through a combination of genetics and childhood experience.

His father was a vet who "had a great interest in maths and engineering", while his mother's side of the family was "very artistic".

"That's ultimately what you need - that combination of the creative, artistic side, measured with an engineering discipline and analytical side," he says.

When he was about 11, Newey says, during "very long, lonely summer holidays" he started sketching designs of racing cars, and turning them into models with metal and fibreglass.

"I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but what I was unwittingly doing was developing the ability to picture something, sketch it, and develop it in 3D form. It was the process of putting it into 3D that was the important bit.

"Then, if you take the 10,000-hour rule, there I was kind of in an unwitting way practising that from a very early age."

Red Bull's success was 'totally unexpected'
The context for this is the Red Bull RB19, the car in which Max Verstappen and his team have achieved the most successful season in F1 history - by every possible metric.


Formula 1 2023: Max Verstappen wins third successive WDC title
Newey is Red Bull's chief technical officer - a role in which he acts as leader and inspiration for a team of engineers who have produced what is undoubtedly one of the greatest F1 cars ever made.

Its success is down to the way the car's surfaces interact with the air flowing over it as it charges around a grand prix track, braking and turning, pitching, sliding imperceptibly, and accelerating, its driver on the limit of its capabilities.

It does so more effectively, keeping the highest level of downforce more consistently and more stably, than anything else in the field.

This, in a nutshell, is what Newey does better than anyone, and has done in F1 for more than 30 years - for Williams, McLaren and now Red Bull; leading the design on cars that have won 12 drivers' and 11 constructors' world titles since 1992.

Newey is a diffident, unassuming character for one of such extravagant gifts. He eschews the limelight, and for this exclusive conversion with BBC Sport has made an exception to his general distaste for interviews.

The Red Bull is the latest in a series of era-defining car designs for which Newey is ultimately responsible, even if he is always keen to emphasise that "F1 is clearly not about one person, and developing the engineering team and working with that team has also been a huge satisfaction".

The success of this year - 20 victories in 21 races so far, 18 of them for Verstappen, and doubtless another to end the season in Abu Dhabi this weekend - was "totally unexpected", says Newey.

Red Bull dominated the second half of last season, but he says: "We fully expected this year that everything would close up."

And he believes Red Bull's success is rooted in the fact that when F1's new regulations were introduced for 2021 - marking the biggest rule change for 40 years - "we managed to get the fundamentals of the car right".

"The good thing about that was it allowed us to take an evolutionary approach, to understand the strengths and weaknesses of last year's car and try to address that appropriately," he says.

This is a theme through Newey's career - at big regulation changes in 1998, when he was at McLaren, then at Red Bull in 2009 and 2022, his designs have been the ones that set a trend which most other teams ended up following.

"We have managed to read regulations changes well," he says, "and come back with a car we can then evolve."

And what was the evolution for this year?

"Weight loss was part of it," Newey says. "We never managed to get down to the weight limit last year. By the end of the season, we were still significantly over, so much more detail through the winter to get the weight off, and then the rest was primarily aerodynamic refinement."

There has been much focus these past two years on the Red Bull's sidepod design, which uses a heavy undercut beside the driver to channel air around the sides of the car and has a pronounced downward slope on the top surface as it moves towards the rear.

But these features are just part of a series of elements - including the front and rear suspension design - aimed at making the floor work as effectively as possible. The key to success with current F1 cars is underneath.

Beneath the car are two venturi tunnels - essentially long, narrow wings either side of the chassis - that generate downforce by accelerating airflow between the car and the ground, creating low pressure that sucks the car into the track.

"It's all about trying to condition the flow to give the best performance to the underbody," Newey says. "Most of what you see is as always to control the front-wheel wake, which in any open-wheel racing car is a big thing, and maximising the shape of the underside is the key to the whole thing."

'Tighter, closer Ferrari heading in right direction'
Lessons from the past
The question, of course, is why Red Bull managed to discover this approach before anyone else.

Newey's genius partly explains it, but there is also a particular aspect of his experience that undoubtedly helped - he is pretty much the only active F1 designer who has experience of working in the last era when cars used venturi tunnels - the early 1980s.

Newey acknowledges this was part of the explanation as to why Red Bull alone did not suffer significantly from 'porpoising' or 'bouncing' in 2022.

This is a phenomenon common with venturi cars - the low pressure sucks the car down, but when the car gets low enough, the airflow can become disrupted, and the car jumps up, only for the airflow to start working again, sucking the car down again before the process repeats.

Creating the optimum downforce levels without encountering this is not easy - as was obvious at the start of last year.

"I think we hit on [the car layout] for a variety of reasons - trying to look at the flow physics and understand what we thought was required," Newey says, "but, yes, also the bouncing problem. I was surprised that nobody really saw that coming, to be perfectly honest, because it was certainly a problem in the '80s.

"And I do remember my first job was as an aerodynamicist at Fittipaldi, which was a small F1 team, whose technical director was Harvey Postlethwaite. With those ground-effect cars, in 1981 we decided that because we were running the front so stiff, we could save weight by throwing away the springs and dampers and just substituting it with a bump rubber.

"It was my first ever visit to a track working, rather than simply as a spectator, for the test where we took that solution up to Silverstone. Keke Rosberg was driving the car, and as it came past the pits, it was bouncing so badly that you could see daylight under the front tyres.

"That was a lesson in how badly you could get it wrong and create bouncing; and also that bouncing is not simply the aerodynamic shape. It is also how it interacts with the suspension and the stiffness of the bodywork.

"In that first test at Barcelona last year, it was very apparent that lots of people hadn't considered that at all."

Adrian Newey and Max Verstappen
Newey and Verstappen are two key parts of a record-breaking Red Bull outfit
Verstappen is 'quite exceptional'
At Red Bull, Newey sits on top of what he calls "a very flat structure", with technical director Pierre Wache leading a group of engineers Newey says is "exceptional" and the best the team has had.

Could they be as successful without him?

"Erm, I'm not the person to ask," he says.

Is he just being modest?

"I enjoy trying to be creative - standing at my drawing board as everybody knows, and trying to come up with things," he says. "But also I very much enjoy working with the team and that's the culture we try to promote and embrace."

Red Bull have won 38 of the 43 races since the start of this era of rules. But there are two drivers at the team, and Verstappen has taken 34 of those victories, team-mate Sergio Perez only four.

Newey says there is no way of determining how much of their success this year is down to the car and how much to Verstappen, but he emphasises that to win world titles you need "a great driver, a good car and a good engine - if one of the ingredients is weak, you might snatch the odd win here and there, but you won't win the championship".

It should be pointed out that, despite a mediocre season, Perez has just secured second in the drivers' championship, even if he made harder work of it than he should have. So the lion's share of Red Bull's success has surely to be attributed to the car.

Nevertheless, Newey is a great admirer of Verstappen.

"I have been fortunate enough to have worked with several great drivers," he says, "and while their personalities can be significantly different in how they conduct themselves - their approach to little things like debriefs after each session - the thing they all have in common is the ability to drive the car with a lot of mental reserve left.

"They are able to drive the car with enough capacity left over to think about how they are using the tyres, how the race is unfolding, when to push, when to not push, more of course now in particular with these cars, how to adjust the electronics settings to suit the handling of the car as it develops through the race. Max is quite exceptional at that."

Regrets over Senna and Alonso
Newey is 65 in December, and a couple of years ago he had a nasty accident. On holiday, he was riding a bike back from a restaurant in the dark when he veered off the path and crashed into a rock, fracturing his skull.

I ask whether it made him reassess anything about his life.

"I think I am too pig-headed and stupid to do that," he smiles.

At an age many people would be contemplating retirement, Newey is not only still working in F1, but also involved with Red Bull in designing a track car and submarine, and in the Alinghi America's Cup project.

"Retirement is a funny thing, isn't it?" Newey says. "If you'd asked me when I was 50 if I would still be working now, I would have said: 'No, absolutely not.'

"And then, of course, things come up, and you think, 'I'm actually enjoying it and what else would I do?' I'd get bored lying on a beach.

"Two of the people I most respect are [former F1 boss] Bernie Ecclestone and [US racing magnate] Roger Penske, both of whom are still working at quite a ripe old age and are still very mentally agile.

"I asked both of them, because I know both of them reasonably well, what's their secret? And they both said: 'Don't stop working. Think of your brain as a muscle that needs exercise.' And I do agree with that from other observations.

"Unfortunately, my father retired at 65, and kind of ended up a little bit lost afterwards, I suppose. I don't think he'd mind me saying that.

"So I am conscious of all these things. Equally, F1 is a very involving sport. I still love it. I have been fortunate enough to be doing what I wanted to do from about the age of 10 - ie be an engineer in motor racing - so while I still enjoy it, I would like to still be involved."

I ask if he has any regrets, any drivers he would have wanted to work with, anything he wished he had done differently.

He points immediately to Ayrton Senna, who was killed in a crash in a Williams car designed by Newey at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, in only his third race for the team.

"Well, clearly first and foremost to have had a longer relationship with Ayrton," Newey says.

"In terms of drivers, Fernando [Alonso] is one I have always…"

Red Bull nearly had him at one point, I say. You were in a car with him at Spa airport after the 2013 Belgian Grand Prix, discussing a deal.

"You have a good memory," Newey smiles. "That's a regret that that never happened because I have a tremendous respect for Fernando.

"The truth is, first of all, I try to live in the present and the future and not the past.

"Regrets? No. I just feel tremendously lucky to have had the opportunities I've had and to have worked with the people I have done and met the people I have done."

Esteban Ocon set the pace as the 2023 season drew to a close with a busy and incident-filled day of testing in Abu Dhabi.

Teams could run two cars – one for race drivers to test tyres and one for rookies – but the start of running was delayed for 25 minutes for the slightly unusual reason of the medical helicopter not yet being in position. The sight of the helicopter circling the track was enough for George Russell to head to the end of the pit lane ready to start his running, but it was another few minutes before the helicopter had landed and the track went green.

After that delay, there was then an interruption half an hour later due to a water leak on the track between Turn 13 and Turn 14. The leak ensured a red flag while the issue was rectified, with teams losing out on a further 25 minutes on that occasion.

The next red flag was caused by more traditional means, as Russell crashed at Turn 6 just after 13:00 local time. An apparent car failure led to the Mercedes driver going straight on at the end of the long straight, heavily damaging the front right corner of the car and bringing an early end to his running for the day.

While many teams were already thinking about a lunch break, the near-30-minute stoppage enforced it for some and led to those who were running different drivers in the afternoon being able to start work on switching their car configurations over.

Despite the number of cars on track there were relatively few further moments that caught the eye of race control. Jake Dennis spinning his Red Bull at Turn 12, with three hours of the day remaining, was one of those to cause a spell of yellow flags, as was Zak O’Sullivan after a spin at Turn 1 later on.

But there was a late interruption, and it was a dramatic one, when Ayumu Iwasa had to stop his AlphaTauri at the pit entry and fire marshals needed to extinguish his car, causing a further 15-minute delay.

Through it all, Ocon enjoyed smooth running and set the pace with a 1:24.393, completing 110 laps and ending up nearly 0.3s clear of McLaren’s new reserve driver Pato O’Ward as the top 19 drivers all set best laps on the softest C5 compound. The Mexican - who also ran in FP1 last weekend - edged out Fred Vesti in the Mercedes and Sergio Perez in this year’s dominant Red Bull, with all four exceeding 100 laps.

“It was a very positive day,” Perez said. “Always on these days driving, it’s always a pain in the ass to end up doing it but there is so much learning and it’s productive as well.

“It was good and important to put in the time, it’s been another productive day and I think especially coming out of a race everything is really fresh, the circuit was very representative, especially in the afternoon, so yeah plenty of productive testing and good information for next year. All in all it’s a good way to finish the year.”

Carlos Sainz had been quickest at the halfway stage before handing over to team mate Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, and the Spaniard dropped to fifth by the chequered flag ahead of his countryman Fernando Alonso.

Lance Stroll drove the morning for Aston Martin before handing over to Alonso, meaning the two-time world champion only had time for 37 laps.

Next came Jack Doohan after a productive day for the Alpine reserve, with a best time of 1:25.038 leaving him just 0.012s clear of Robert Shwartzman in the Ferrari, while Logan Sargeant and Leclerc – both afternoon runners – rounded out the top ten.

Fresh from their FP1 runs, Theo Pourchaire and Felipe Drugovich were 11th and 12th for Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin respectively, while Iwasa’s stoppage came after 96 laps of his debut run for AlphaTauri, ending up 15th overall.

Another debutant was seen at Williams where Franco Colapinto became the first Argentinian to drive a current F1 car for more than 20 years, completing 65 laps in the morning before handing over to O’Sullivan. His total was only half of the benchmark though, as Pietro Fittipaldi boasted the highest mileage with 130 laps for Haas.

Monster Energy has partnered with McLaren on what is described as a “multi-year” contract, which will lead to the recognisable ‘M’ logo featuring on the helmets, race suits, caps and drinks bottles (branded in the past by Coca-Cola) of drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from the 2024 season.

While McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has used his vast experience in the commercial and marketing sectors to bring on board an array of high-profile sponsors such as Google, Dell and British American Tobacco (Velo) - moves helped by the Netflix-led popularity boom for F1 - signing with Monster is made more significant since it draws the energy drink company away from rival team Mercedes.

Throughout the Three-Pointed Star’s run of eight constructors’ championship and more recent ground-effects struggles, the ‘M’ badge has featured on the helmet and race suit collar of Lewis Hamilton and team-mates Nico Rosberg and George Russell.

Hamilton does have his own personal sponsorship deal with Monster, the seven-time champion lending his name to a range of zero-sugar drinks. This tie-up is expected to continue despite the partnership with Mercedes coming to an end.

Rodney Sacks, chair and co-CEO of Monster Energy Company, said: “We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Mercedes Formula 1 team, and [motorsport boss] Toto Wolf in particular, for a partnership that has spanned well over a decade and seen us celebrate some wonderful success together. We wish the team well for their upcoming championship campaigns.”

“Monster Energy is proud to start this new chapter in its F1 journey with McLaren Racing. Monster is focused on enhancing fan experiences and partnering with a world-class team and its elite drivers to share our passion with F1’s global audience. We are planning some really exciting programs with Lando and Oscar and are excited to go racing together from 2024.”

Brown added: "We are delighted to join forces with the iconic Monster Energy brand from next season onwards. Monster focuses on celebrating athletes through bold ideas and creating awesome content, so we can’t wait to explore ideas and find new ways to engage and entertain our fans.”

Max Verstappen’s success has come at a price, with his FIA Super Licence next season set to break a record for how much it will cost to race in F1 next season.

After clinching a record points haul of 575 in one season in 2023, the FIA’s pay-per-point system for the Super Licence, as well as to the teams themselves, means that his and Red Bull’s pockets will be hit to be able to re-enter Formula 1 next season.

Based on 2023 figures, with the 2024 numbers not yet available in public, Verstappen’s Super Licence is set to cost north of €1.2m [£1.04m] – more than double nearest rival Sergio Perez.

Max Verstappen set for record FIA Super Licence fee in 2024 season

After posting a record points total last season, Verstappen spoke out about the “absurd” fee he and Red Bull had to pay the FIA last time these figures were taken.

While he was due to pay €963,800 last season, this time around, even with a fee freeze for 2024, he will be due to pay €1,217,900 – a 26.3% increase on last season.

But given that entry fees for F1 teams went up by 6.5% in line with inflation on the United States Consumer Price Index for 2024, it’s likely that Super Licence fees will follow a similar trend.

For 2023, every driver had to pay a €10,400 flat fee to the FIA for their Super Licence, plus an additional €2,100 for every World Championship point they scored in the 2022 season.

So now that the 2023 season has concluded, we now know more about what the drivers are likely to have to pay to be on the grid again in 2024 – so let’s take a look.

F1 2024: FIA Super Licence fees by driver

[Based on 2023 figures of €10,400 base fee and €2,100 per point, with 2024 fees not yet publicly available]

1. Max Verstappen: €1,217,900 [575 points]

2. Sergio Perez: €608,900 [285 points]

3. Lewis Hamilton: €501,800 [234 points]

4. Fernando Alonso: €443,000 [206 points]

5. Charles Leclerc: €443,000 [206 points]

6. Lando Norris: €440,900 [205 points]

7. Carlos Sainz: €430,400 [200 points]

8. George Russell: €377,900 [175 points]

9. Oscar Piastri: €214,100 [97 points]

10. Lance Stroll: €165,800 [74 points]

11. Pierre Gasly: €140,600 [62 points]

12. Esteban Ocon: €132,200 [58 points]

13. Alex Albon: €67,100 [27 points]

14. Yuki Tsunoda: €46,100 [17 points]

15. Valtteri Bottas: €30,400 [10 points]

16. Nico Hulkenberg: €28,300 [9 points]

17. Daniel Ricciardo: €23,000 [6 points]

18. Zhou Guanyu: €23,000 [6 points]

19. Kevin Magnussen: €16,700 [3 points]

20. Logan Sargeant: €12,500 [1 point]