Avoiding product placement in Formula One is like expecting a quiet Saturday on Oxford Street – a nice idea, but wildly unrealistic.
But there’s nothing foolish about the commercial growth Formula One has experienced in recent years. In fact, the series’ partnership portfolio has never looked healthier.
Step into the Paddock Club at this year’s British Grand Prix and it quickly becomes clear how Formula One generated revenues totalling US$3.65 billion in 2024. Even as a monsoon swept through the Northamptonshire countryside, briefly forcing punters at Silverstone to dive for cover, hospitality activations were impossible to miss.
Qatar Airways flight attendants flanked the entrance and were dotted throughout the venue, Tag Heuer showcased oversized watch designs on a prominent plinth, and a Whispering Angel billboard reminded guests of Formula One’s official rosé. Meanwhile, Glenmorangie displayed an Eagle Speedster Jaguar E-Type to commemorate its new deal.
All that was just within the first ten steps into the Paddock Club, such was the level of sponsorship activity on display.
In this environment, achieving cut-through is the biggest challenge for brands in Formula One. Yet, in many ways, the sheer diversity of sponsors is an advantage – something Aston Martin is leveraging this season.
‘Stroll is a brand guy’
When considering the team’s commercial journey, it’s important to remember that this is only their fifth season competing under the Aston Martin name.
In the grand scheme, they’re still relative newcomers compared to heavyweight manufacturers like Ferrari and Mercedes, or even energy drink brand Red Bull.
Aston Martin’s previous involvement in Formula One was through a stint as a partner of Red Bull Racing between 2016 and 2020, serving as title sponsor for the final three of those seasons. But despite lacking decades of direct experience in the series, the iconic Aston Martin name carries considerable weight.
Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll recognised that when he bought the team. It also meant Aston Martin could approach things differently, given it was unencumbered by outdated commercial and marketing practices.
“Lawrence Stroll is a brand guy, he was never going to have a team called Racing Point,” Jefferson Slack, managing director for commercial and marketing at Aston Martin, tells BlackBook Motorsport.
“He knew when he bought the team he had to get Aston Martin and if you know Lawrence he usually gets what he wants. So it took him a couple of years, but he pulled it off.
“But of course the brand is fundamental. Without the brand, we certainly wouldn’t have had the level of success that we’ve had commercially.
“[When] we started in 2021, we had the benefit of not really having a legacy commercial marketing organisation. So everything from the way we’ve managed our social media to our content creation to our guest experiences, we’ve tried to think about it in a new, innovative way.”
The team had a very different look under the Racing Point name, something Lawrence Stroll (left) was quick to change (Image credit: Getty Images)
Shedding stereotypes
Currently, Aston Martin have 33 partners across the ‘usual suspect’ industries like financial services and engineering. But among these expected partnerships, there are signs of the changing landscape in Formula One.
Among its sponsors, the team counts two partners from the world of artificial intelligence (AI), Arm and CoreWeave, reflecting how the sector is fast becoming the new frontier for endemic sponsorships in the sport.
More unexpectedly, Aston Martin also has a deal with skincare brand Elemis. It’s a surprising union because cosmetics and cars have rarely gone hand in hand, especially given the macho traditions that have long permeated the Formula One paddock.
However, through Elemis in particular, Aston Martin are trying to redefine commercial norms.
“Technology partnerships are natural for the sport,” Slack says. “I think the pandemic accelerated that because of the adoption of even more technology. You couldn’t function without leaning into technology.”
“Then you overlay AI with that [and] that’s a trend to me that’s been around for a while and it’s very natural for Formula One.
“Looking at things like beauty, or even B2C brands, it’s more than just beauty, it’s the fact that consumer companies are now looking at Formula One because the sport has gotten more popular.”
Slack also points to how Formula One has shed its stereotype as a “fairly elitist, fairly European, male-dominated, older sport.” That shift is drawing in a younger, more diverse fanbase and, in turn, attracting a different mix of brands.
Aston Martin, for example, have benefited from their partnership with TikTok, positioning the team as one of the more proactive Formula One outfits in responding to online trends.
This was evident in the buildup to the British Grand Prix with the release of an Aston Martin nail polish inspired by #nailtok (a beauty trend on TikTok), which also supported the team’s initial steps into the beauty space.
‘It’s the beginning of a new wave’
Aston Martin’s partnership with Elemis is perhaps among the most distinctive in Formula One right now. While beauty companies Charlotte Tilbury and Wella Group are big supporters of the F1 Academy junior series, Elemis stands out as the only brand from that sector directly involved in Formula One itself.
For Slack, the synergies were immediately clear.
“It was a real meeting of minds,” he explains. “It’s a company with three founders that are still involved, so very … personal and that’s how we are as a team. We have an owner [Stroll] who is very personal, he’s here at every race, so there was an easy discussion there.
“The brands made sense. We have an Elemis Spa in our [hospitality] paddock this weekend, it’s fully booked for three days. It’s been one of the most popular things. We’re even finding our guests are enjoying that because it’s something that’s a bit different than you’d normally find [in Formula One].”
“The brainstorming session started very early: ‘How can we bring something that would be game-changing, something that’s new to Formula One, and something that the guests of Aston Martin could experience that was unique?’,” says Elemis cofounder Sean Harrington,
“That’s where we came up with the Pit Stop Spa idea. It’s been remarkable. I’ve now been doing six [or] seven Grands Prix all over the world, the Pit Stop Spa is fully booked all day, every day.
“While Formula One surprised us with its female viewership being over 40 per cent, the amount of men that want these treatments is quite incredible. So, for us, it’s bringing a whole new energy to our future.”
Harrington believes this is just the start for beauty brands in motorsport.
“It’s opened a whole new world for beauty brands and there will be many more,” he continues. “We’re the first one or two with Charlotte Tilbury and Elf [Cosmetics] in America.
“We’re here but I think it’s only the beginning. I think you’re going to see another ramp up. When I was in Australia [for the Grand Prix], I had Mecca Cosmetica with me, they did a huge activation in the general admission area.
“Here today [at the British Grand Prix] we’ve got Harrods (H Beauty) and Space NK. They’re all looking at it, how they can bring activations. It really is the beginning of a new wave.”
Permeating the whole team
Attracting not only a brand like Elemis but also a technologically advanced company like CoreWeave highlights the breadth of the platform that Aston Martin – and Formula One – provides.
While HSBC has expressed doubts about the longevity of CoreWeave’s business model, the company’s stock price has surged 240 per cent since March and it recently invested US$6 billion to establish a data centre in Pennsylvania.
CoreWeave is evidently eager to make a statement and challenge convention. So, in a seemingly unconventional move, it became the title sponsor of Aston Martin’s wind tunnel. But aligning with the team’s technical side was a no-brainer for the company.
“Where do we think we can have the most impact? The wind tunnel, obviously,” explains Jean English, chief marketing officer of CoreWeave. “But then it goes into how they look at race strategy, how it flows into what happens with car design, it goes into how you think about what happens on race day itself.
“We are sponsoring the wind tunnel, we are a sponsor with the car, we have the trackside sponsorship, so we’re pretty pervasive across the Aston Martin team.”
As is often the case in motorsport, English already had a relationship with Aston Martin through her previous role at Juniper Networks, a former team sponsor, which helped facilitate the new deal.”
“CoreWeave is an extraordinarily fast-growing company that was looking at a public offering,” says Slack. “They recognised they needed to elevate their brand … because while they were doing well in their sector … you need people to know who you are.
“Lawrence [Stroll] spent a lot of time with them, so they’ve leaned in as hard as anybody’s ever leaned into a partnership. I couldn’t be more excited about what they’re going to do.
“These guys are world experts in the way you take compute and you get outcomes with that by using large language models and software to do that.”
Legendary designer Adrian Newey (left), who officially started working for Aston Martin on 1st March 2025, will be crucial to Stroll’s hopes of a competitive Aston Martin team in Formula One (Image credit: Getty Images)
Being “way ahead” of commercial projections
Moving forward, Slack confirms that Aston Martin have big plans to deeply integrate CoreWeave into their operations as they seek to fully grasp the scope and potential of AI.
It’s a testament to how adaptable Formula One has become that Aston Martin can entice and benefit from such a diverse range of partners. After all, how many sports teams can claim to offer an engaging platform for everything from AI to beauty?
According to Slack, Aston Martin are already “way ahead of projections” commercially because of this. The next challenge? Converting that off-track momentum into on-track performance.
“We’re not performing as well as we would have liked this year but, as we all know, it’s all about next year and the change in the regulations,” says Slack.
“I go over to the factory … and there’s this guy named Adrian Newey working there until eight, nine, ten at night [on] Saturday, Sundays.
“We feel great about the future and I think it’s just about managing through this year. We’ve got a great team in place, we’ve got a great CEO in Andy Cowell, so all of that makes you feel good.”
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