Sponsorship is a pretty traditional model of increasing brand exposure and public awareness of a motoring product, which makes it somewhat surprising that telematics firms don’t sponsor more racing teams. However Octo Telematics has now announced a sponsorship of MotoGP team Pramac Racing. The Italian based team, which has Danilo Petrucci and Yonny Hernández riding for it in the World Championships this year, will sport Octo branding on its bikes and clothing and will now rebrand as Octo Pramac Racing.
To help celebrate the new sponsorship, the Pramac team unveiled the latest wrapping of their Ducati bikes and leathers over the weekend, where they were used for the first time in the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello.
While Octo may now have quite a prominent position in the MotoGP, it is most well known for its products off the track. Its Octo Rider packages give riders the same sorts of telematics tracking offered to car drivers, whereby it can offer them cheaper insurance packages by better risk profiling riders to know whether they are engaging in any practices which might make them more dangerous to insure. Things like heavy acceleration and braking, fast cornering or speeding may all be taken into consideration, along with the time of day/night that they ride and how many miles they cover.
Octo is expected to use its partnership with Pramac to further test its telematics hardware, utilising the regular races of the MotoGP and the team’s expertise to find new ways of improving telematics tracking and investigating new metrics which could further improve tracking for insurance purposes.
Paolo Campinoti, CEO of Pramac Racing, said: “We are delighted to celebrate this partnership a few days before the Italian Grand Prix in Mugello, the home race for Pramac and its fans, with hope for a great result that could represent the first in a long series of successes to share with Octo.”
Octo Telematics CEO, Fabio Bianchi was also front and centre to celebrate the news, saying to the press: “We are highly optimistic about our partnership with Pramac because our companies share common values, ranging from the technological leadership in their respective sectors, to the ability to bring Italian quality to the world, working with passion and expertise to ensure satisfaction to customers.”
It’s not clear at this time whether Octo Telematics’ new relationship with Pramac will bring an end to its previous sponsorship of rival team Iodaracing, though it seems quite likely.
Image source: Octo Pramac
