Henry Richard, the former Vice President of AMD and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer that went to Freescale semiconductors, was responsible for Ferrari sponsorship.

As he likes fast cars, he had decided that spending millions on Ferrari and Nascar sponsorship was worthy; and since he has gone as of September 2007, AMD is trying to get itself out of this several million heavy deal.

AMD has already canceled its Ferrari Formula 1 sponsorship and it is waiting for the contract to expire. These guys from Formula 1 are clever and they don’t let you out easily from your commitment. Once the current contract is over, AMD won’t renew it, at least not for the time being.

AMD spends more than ten but less than twenty million to be on Michael Schumacher’s retired shoulder and on the side of the helmet promotion. That is a lot of money and it’s not like AMD doesn’t know what to do with it.

The funny part is that many marketing people will say that this is a good and quite affordable deal.