Not Every Sponsorship Looks the Same
Say the word "sponsorship" and most people picture a logo on a shirt or a banner trackside. But look closely at where Sailun actually puts its name, and a more interesting pattern emerges: the company isn't chasing a single type of sponsorship deal — it's building relationships with specific teams, specific championships, and specific communities, each chosen for a different reason. A Bundesliga football club, a family-run German truck racing outfit, and a car-modification festival in Vietnam don't have much in common on the surface. But each one gives Sailun something the others can't.
Team Hecker: Getting Trackside With a Family Racing Outfit
One of Sailun's most hands-on sponsorships isn't with a corporate racing giant — it's with Team Hecker, a family-run truck racing team based in Anröchte, Germany. Since the start of the 2026 season, the team has competed in the Chrome category of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship under the banner "Sailun powered by Bohnenkamp," with Sailun as official tire partner and distribution partner Bohnenkamp Group supporting the commercial relationship on the ground.
The partnership got real visibility in July 2026 at the Int. Shell ADAC Truck-Grand-Prix — held at the Nürburgring, one of motorsport's most iconic venues, and marking the 40th anniversary of the event. Team Hecker arrived fresh off driver Clemens Hecker's first overall TGP Championship win at Lausitzring, achieved in a truck rebuilt specifically for the 2026 season, giving the Nürburgring weekend — a home event for the Anröchte-based team — extra weight.
What makes this sponsorship distinctive is how tangible it is. Rather than a distant logo placement, the activation included:
- Team Hecker's full line-up of trucks, including a Scania fitted with specially branded "Smart Performance" tires, on public display.
- Fan-facing activity around the team's hospitality truck, where Sailun-branded footballs were given away through competitions and interactive promotions.
- Direct engagement between Sailun's tire technology and the exact audience most likely to buy commercial truck tires— fleet operators, drivers, and truck racing enthusiasts attending one of Germany's most popular truck racing weekends.
This is sponsorship as a working relationship rather than a billboard: Sailun tires are literally being raced, tested, and shown off in front of the commercial vehicle buyers who matter most to that side of the business.
The FIA Racing Series: A Broader, Multi-Championship Commitment
Team Hecker's truck racing partnership sits alongside Sailun's wider status as an official FIA tire partner, a role the company has held since the 2024 season. Under that arrangement, Sailun supplies racing tires across several major international series: the FIA F4 Chinese Championship, the TCR Asia International Series, the China Touring Car Championship (CTCC), and the Superrace Championship in South Korea.
Sailun has described competing at FIA level as an ideal way to demonstrate sustainable performance under demanding conditions — framing motorsport not as a marketing expense, but as an extension of its product testing and validation process. Between the FIA circuit series and the European Truck Racing Championship, Sailun's motorsport sponsorships now span everything from junior single-seater racing to heavy-duty truck competition — a spread that mirrors the breadth of Sailun's own product range, from passenger tires to commercial truck and bus tires.
VF3 Championship Vietnam: Sponsoring a Car Culture Movement
Not every championship Sailun backs is a traditional race. In mid-2026, Sailun served as the main sponsor of the VF3 Championship Vietnam 2026, a personalization and car-modification competition held alongside the Automechanika HCM 2026 exhibition. The event centered on Vietnam's growing electric vehicle culture, with categories judging entries on sound system builds, overall modification quality, and audience popularity.
As main sponsor, Sailun awarded three sets of premium tires to the champions in the event's most prestigious categories. But the deeper significance of the sponsorship wasn't the prize itself — it was the positioning. By backing a community-driven EV customization event rather than a traditional race, Sailun aligned itself directly with Vietnam's enthusiast EV culture at a moment when the country's electric vehicle market is expanding rapidly. The event drew explicit connections between Sailun's involvement and its broader ambition to support Vietnam's EV community — a natural extension for a company that also operates its first overseas manufacturing plant in the country.
Three Sponsorships, Three Different Jobs
Looked at side by side, these partnerships aren't a scattershot collection of logo placements — each one is doing a distinct job for the brand:
- Team Hecker and the European Truck Racing Championship builds credibility with commercial fleet buyers and distributors in one of Europe's most demanding tire markets, through direct, hands-on product exposure.
- The FIA-sanctioned circuit series establishes Sailun as a legitimate technical partner across Asia's most competitive motorsport landscape, spanning junior development racing through to established touring car championships.
- The VF3 Championship in Vietnam builds grassroots community trust in a market where Sailun already has deep manufacturing roots, tapping into enthusiast culture rather than professional competition.
Rather than one global campaign applied everywhere, Sailun's team and championship sponsorships look more like a set of locally tailored bets — each one matched to the specific audience, market, and product line it's meant to support.
What Ties It All Together
Across a German truck racing paddock, an FIA circuit in China, and a car festival in Ho Chi Minh City, the common thread isn't the type of event — it's who's watching. Sailun's sponsorship choices consistently put its tires in front of the exact people most likely to buy them: fleet operators at a truck racing weekend, motorsport-literate consumers following FIA series, and EV enthusiasts at a Vietnamese car culture event. That precision — choosing sponsorships for audience relevance rather than sheer scale — is arguably a more telling signal of Sailun's marketing strategy than any single logo placement could be on its own.