KUALA LUMPUR: ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) have announced Petronas as the broadcast sponsor of the 2010 Formula 1 season in Asia, commencing with the live coverage of the 2010 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix practice session on Friday, March 12.

The broadcast sponsorship includes more than 600 hours of F1 programming over eight months, with live coverage of all 19 races of the season to be aired on STAR Sports and high-definition channel ESPN HD. Currently, the ESPN HD channel is only available in Malaysia within the region.

Petronas Motorsports general manager Anita Azrina Abdul Aziz said the company was pleased to have ESS as its partner for the second year as the sports network has helped grow the Petronas brand within F1 and put Malaysia on the international motorsports map.

“We expect the [Mercedes GP] team to do really well and win the championship as we’re supporting a great team. Petronas is also hoping to develop the business side as we’re going into the partnership with not just the team but we’ll be supplying Mercedes with lubricants gradually,” she said during the launch of the 2010 F1 season broadcast on Tuesday, March 9.

Petronas is the title sponsor of the Mercedes GP Petronas F1 team, formerly known as Brawn GP. Prior to December last year, Petronas had sponsored the BMW-Sauber team.

Complementing ESS' on-air coverage this year were lap-by-lap updates and video content online at ESPNSTAR.com, as well as mobile news updates via mobileESPN, said ESPN STAR Sports senior vice-president of advertising and digital media sales Charles Less.

Last year, 3.5 million viewers tuned into STAR Sports’s F1 coverage.

This year’s F1 season features the debut of three new teams – Virgin Racing, Lotus Racing and HRT (Hispania Racing F1 Team) – as well as the return of seven-time F1 world champion Michael Schumacher, who came out of a three-year retirement period to race for the Mercedes GP Petronas team.