Sepang 2026 · Stories
Brewed on the Federal Highway
By Will Tygart · September 28, 2026
Heineken Malaysia has brewed beer in Petaling Jaya since 1964 — and Malaysians own nearly half the company. Now its name rides on the world champions' car.
This is my favorite kind of story in this series: the one hiding in plain sight. Heineken is a visible partner of Red Bull Racing, the team that has set the pace in Formula 1. You see the name on the car, on the pit crew, on the hospitality units. What you probably don't know — unless you drive past it — is that Heineken Malaysia Berhad was founded on January 24, 1964, has been listed on Bursa Malaysia since 1965, and is roughly 49% publicly held. Read that again: nearly half of the Malaysian company is owned by public shareholders. Malaysians literally own a slice of the sponsor on the champions' car.
The beer itself is brewed at Sungei Way, Petaling Jaya — a 23.7-acre brewery off the Federal Highway, the same highway half the Sepang crowd will drive down this weekend. Tiger and Guinness come out of that brewery. Sixty years of brewing, in the Klang Valley, by a Malaysian-listed company, and now the parent brand's name travels the world on a Formula 1 car.
I love the symmetry of it. On Sunday, fans will be in the Sepang grandstands drinking Tiger — brewed in Petaling Jaya by Heineken Malaysia — while watching a Red Bull carry the Heineken name past at 300 km/h. The grandstand and the grid, connected by a brewery off the Federal Highway.
Most sponsor stories in this series are about giants: national oil companies, century-old oil majors. This one's different. It's local in the best way — a Malaysian public company, sixty years old, that happens to share a name with one of the world's biggest brewers and a place on the fastest billboard in sports. Nobody at the track will be surprised that Petronas is Malaysian. But Heineken? That's the "did you know" for the drive home.