Champagne moments to savour

A joy­ous mem­o­ry for For­mu­la 1 fans. Lewis Hamilton’s first grand prix win, in Cana­da 2007. It was only his sixth race. He qual­i­fied in pole posi­tion. Blitzed the start, squeez­ing Fer­nan­do Alon­so wide into the grass at the first cor­ner. And then shim­mered away. Even a safe­ty car restart mid-race couldn’t hold him back. At 22, he was the youngest For­mu­la 1 win­ner.

On the vic­to­ry podi­um Hamil­ton could bare­ly stay still. He did his best to stand to atten­tion dur­ing God Save The Queen, but kept shak­ing his head in dis­be­lief. A quick pho­to­graph with his tro­phy and then he explodes.

He leaps off the podi­um, whisk­ing up the Jer­oboam of Mumm cham­pagne and blasts his team boss Mar­tin Whit­marsh. He then pumps cham­pagne into his own face, turns to soak sec­ond-place Nick Hei­d­feld, who returns the favour. Glugs hard from the bot­tle. And then walks up to the rail. Holds the Mumm aloft. Taps it a few times and then points at the massed ranks of the McLaren team and his father Antho­ny.

“This is for you” – a pay­back for all the sup­port. The faith. The ten-year old boy who met Ron Den­nis and told him – “I want to race for you one day… I want to race for McLaren” – had deliv­ered. This was the vic­to­ry he’d spent his life work­ing for.

Lewis Hamil­ton cel­e­brat­ing a vic­to­ry with Mumm Cham­pagne

Fans love the podi­um scene. It was, of course, cre­at­ed and refined by the rac­ers them­selves. In 1950 in the heart of cham­pagne coun­try, Reims host­ed its first French Grand Prix. The win­ner received a bot­tle. The tra­di­tion stuck.

The con­nec­tion between the sport and the cham­pagne house is intu­itive to peo­ple with an under­stand­ing of both

At the 1966 Le Mans 24-hour race, Jo Sif­fert climbed on to the podi­um and received the winner’s bot­tle. The cork unex­pect­ed­ly popped out, blow­ing a fine spray over spec­ta­tors. They loved it. The fol­low­ing year at Le Mans, Dan Guer­ney gave Siffert’s ges­ture a delib­er­ate re-run. The cham­pagne moment has been an essen­tial part of the vic­to­ry ever since.

Since 2000, For­mu­la 1 has exclu­sive­ly relied on Mumm for the moment. This year more than two bil­lion peo­ple will see the famous Mumm red sash on the podi­um. The con­nec­tion between the sport and the cham­pagne house is intu­itive to peo­ple with an under­stand­ing of both.

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Chief exec­u­tive Philippe Guet­tat explains: “Mumm’s long-stand­ing part­ner­ship with F1 was found­ed on shared val­ues of per­for­mance, pas­sion and a pio­neer­ing spir­it, and con­tin­ues to be dri­ven by a mutu­al ded­i­ca­tion to inno­va­tion and a quest for excel­lence.

“This part­ner­ship enables Mumm to widen its glob­al reach and vis­i­bil­i­ty, talk­ing direct­ly to con­sumers and For­mu­la 1 fans world­wide.  As the offi­cial cham­pagne spon­sor, we are extreme­ly proud to have wit­nessed the growth of F1 and Mumm in tan­dem, and to con­tin­ue to play a cen­tral role in the icon­ic moment of vic­to­ry on the podi­um around the world.”

The link is prov­ing its val­ue to both For­mu­la 1 and to Mumm. “It helps us posi­tion Mumm as a glob­al icon of vic­to­ry in a styl­ish and glam­orous way,” says Louis De Fautereau, Mumm’s brand direc­tor. “For­mu­la 1 has been an amaz­ing dri­ver of aware­ness for the brand over 15 years.”

The proof? Sales are up 14 per cent in the last six months. Aus­tralia, where For­mu­la 1 is a grow­ing force, is boom­ing. A tie-in with musi­cian David Guet­ta has been a huge hit. Guetta’s Dan­ger­ous, depict­ing a grand prix with him as a dri­ver, has been viewed online more than 100 mil­lion times. The video ends with a podi­um scene, with Guet­ta spray­ing lash­ings of Mumm. Nat­u­ral­ly. How else do you cel­e­brate vic­to­ry?