Shamir and Alpine F1 Team have a new partnership. (L to R) Esteban Ocon, Laurent Rossi and Fernando Alonso. Photo courtesy of Alpine F1 Team
SAN DIEGO—Shamir and Alpine Formula 1 have formed a new partnership which will see Shamir become the Alpine F1 Team's optical performance partner. The collaboration, initiated by Fuse France, the sport marketing agency of Omnicom Media Group, aims at improving the visual quality and safety of every Race Team member and, ultimately, their collective performance. "The partnership is a natural expression of Shamir and Alpine's shared values of leading technologies, innovation, high performance, fast reaction, precision, safety and great teamwork," an announcement said, noting that the Shamir-Alpine F1 Team partnership will create the first ever vision performance lab in Formula 1, providing high performance ophthalmic assessment for Alpine F1 Team and Alpine Academy drivers as well as the pit crew, pit wall and personnel at Alpine F1 Team’s bases in Enstone, U.K. and ViryChâtillon, France.

Research and development will be a cooperative endeavour and both Alpine and Shamir engineers will investigate new technologies to improve racing and safety performance, focused on vision, including reduced glare goggles and colored visors and anti-fog lenses for the pit crew helmets, amongst other innovations.

Alpine F1 Team track team, as well as personnel in its two HQ in ViryChatillon and Enstone, will benefit from accurate ophthalmic follow-ups, while being equipped with Shamir's most advanced safety equipment and lenses aimed at improved visual performance. Reflecting its new standing as technical partner, Shamir's logo will now appear on Alpine F1 Team equipment, such as mechanics' helmets, garage doors, and more.

Cédric Journel, vice president, sales and marketing, Alpine, said, “We are delighted to welcome Shamir on board. Visual excellence is a much underexplored area in our sport and we look forward to exploring new avenues with Shamir, an ophthalmic industry leader, to improve performance through visual tools and processes. They share our drive for constant improvement and there is huge scope to collaborate on many creative and innovative new technologies that will initially help our team but also consumers across the world.”

Antoine Magnan, director of strategic partnerships, Alpine, added, “We are proud to introduce Shamir as our vision performance partner. One of the pillars of our commercial strategy is to match with best-in-class brands to explore new solutions. Formula One offers a unique laboratory for brands to push the boundaries of their technology and develop new processes and materials to enhance Alpine F1 Team performance that can also be applied in the real-world to consumers. It is an exciting partnership, full of potential to explore areas of human performance not yet analyzed in Formula One.”

Davide Brivio, racing director, Alpine F1 Team, stated, “Excellence in Formula One arises from excellence in every area, from every person, and vision is often overlooked as a key performance differentiator. We have seen from many different sports, such as skiing and rallying, that if an individual can focus precisely, without distraction from glare, blurring and flare, it allows them to perform better. Shamir develops world-class innovative ophthalmic technology and we look forward to exploring many different avenues with them.”

Bertrand Nadeau, managing director, Omnicom Media Group France, said, “We are proud to see Shamir becoming a new partner of Alpine F1 team. Contributing to the team’s performance by giving them new means and partners, seems for us a natural extension of the work we do continuously with Renault Alliance every day.”

Yagen Moshe, CEO, Shamir, commented, "We are proud to be associated with this great brand and happy to apply our expertise in support of Alpine F1 performance. We believe our partnership will allow Shamir to express its passion for innovation and continue developing unique and leading products. A wonderful collaboration such as this, with a leading team in one of the top performance sports, represents for us a great opportunity for furthering the Shamir mission—Improving quality of life by improving vision."

Added Zohar Katzman, chief technology officer, Shamir, said, “We are excited to work with Alpine F1 team, a legendary brand. This partnership sparks our imagination and passion for innovation. We share a similar vision and values, among them excellence, accuracy, high performance, safety, and more. Our focus and our mission will be to attain perfect vision under any conditions, tailor personal vision solutions to our Alpine F1 partners and enhance team performance and safety. The challenges and extreme conditions and needs of F1 will drive us toward developing better vision solutions.”

Established in 1972 as a manufacturer of bifocal lenses, Shamir Optical Industry is today a leading producer of advanced single vision and progressive lenses. Proud of its panoramic product offering that harnesses innovative technologies to address an unparalleled range of human vision needs, Shamir is a product of the Israeli “startup nation,” prioritizing and heavily investing in R&D, and employing the industry's top minds.

Efforts focus not only on development of technologies for enhancing visual acuity, but also on supporting ECPs with the products, know-how, and tools they need for promoting their brand and growing their business.