How to Launch an F1 Partnership: Great F1 Partnership Announcement Examples
An F1 partnership announcement is more than just telling people you’ve signed a deal. It’s the first message you send to fans about what kind of partner you’re going to be.
Are you here to slap your logo on the car and call it a day? Or are you going to understand the sport, contribute something to the fan experience and create work they might actually want to engage with?
The best launches start doing the work of the partnership from day one. They introduce the brand in a way that makes sense within the world of the sport and give fans something to notice, enjoy or participate in.
Your launch doesn’t need to explain everything the partnership will do. But it should give fans a reason to think there might be something worth paying attention to.
Announcing the partnership isn’t enough
Most F1 partnership announcements follow the same formula:
A render on social showing your branding on the car. A logo lock-up. A launch film combining pre-season track footage with shots of your product or service. Push it across both sets of channels, and the partnership is officially announced.
You’ve ticked the box. The partnership is public, the stakeholders are happy and the news is out.
But most partners are missing a massive opportunity.
You’ve invested millions in a multi-year partnership with one of the biggest sports in the world and gained access to an incredibly engaged fan base. The launch is your first opportunity to make that investment mean something to them.
As more brands enter Formula 1, simply being there isn't enough. The best partners are fan-first from the beginning. They think about what they can add to the sport and its culture, not just how many channels they can push the announcement across.
And that doesn't necessarily mean a huge production budget or a driver shoot. But it does mean having an idea.
And let’s face it: as a partner, you’re paying for this. The team IP, content rights, channel access, driver time - every asset and every right has value, don’t leave money on the table.
Planning your F1 partnership announcement: know your rights and assets
Ideally, you're thinking about the launch while the partnership is still being negotiated. What support will you get from the team? Are announcement posts across team channels included? Which channels? Will you have access to team IP, imagery and footage? Can you get some driver time for launch content? Is there an opportunity for a collaborative post?
Those details matter. There's little point developing a brilliant social-first launch if the rights or access needed to execute it aren't actually part of the deal.
Even with a strong rights package, there will usually be practical limitations at the beginning of a partnership:
You may not be able to get driver time to film before the launch date.
Your branding may not appear on the car, kit or garage until the partnership officially launches at a Grand Prix, meaning you can't capture those assets in advance.
Confidentiality around the deal can limit what you’re able to produce or share before the announcement.
But those constraints don't have to make the work less creative. Often, they can make it better.
If you don't have a driver shoot, what do you have? Could the product itself become the idea? Is there an overlap between the identities of the two brands? Could you use team IP, archive footage, design, copy or fan culture differently?
The challenge is to leverage the assets you do have rather than building an idea around access you don't.
And that's where working closely with the team matters. They understand their channels, IP, fan base and the realities of what can and can't be done. Bring them into the process early, understand the creative parameters and look for the opportunities within them.
Sometimes the restriction you have to work around ends up being the thing that leads to the best idea.
F1 partnership announcement examples: what the best launches get right
There’s no one way to launch an F1 partnership well. You might have five minutes with a driver, no driver access at all, a limited production budget or a full campaign to work with.
What matters is finding the creative opportunity within the F1 sponsorship rights and assets you actually have.
Here are a few launches that partners did well.
Optimum Nutrition × McLaren: make five minutes of driver time count
Source: McLaren F1 Team Instagram
Optimum Nutrition kept its McLaren F1 team launch incredibly simple: Lando Norris makes a shake, with a camera attached to the Optimum Nutrition shaker giving us the whole thing from the product’s point of view.
It’s a simple idea, but everything works together. The product isn’t just placed in the shot, it creates the shot. The Optimum Nutrition branding is naturally visible, Lando is central to the content, and the format makes smart use of what was probably a relatively small amount of driver time.
Driver content will almost always attract attention. The clever part is finding a way to use that access that feels specific to the brand rather than simply putting a product in a driver’s hand.
1Password × Red Bull Racing: you don’t always need the drivers
Source: Oracle Red Bull Racing Instagram
Driver time is precious and you might not be able to get any before the partner announcement. So find another way to make the announcement feel specific to the partnership.
1Password and Oracle Red Bull Racing leaned directly into what the product does. The launch effectively showed the driver “logging in” to the Red Bull Racing car: the steering wheel is plugged in, the car starts up and the 1Password logo appears on the steering-wheel display.
It’s a simple connection between the product and the F1 car. 1Password is about secure access, so the creative idea turns starting the car into logging in with 1Password.
No elaborate driver shoot required. Just an idea that could only really come from those two brands working together.
S.Pellegrino × Scuderia Ferrari HP: sometimes the simplest idea works
Source: San Pellegrino Instagram
S.Pellegrino's Ferrari announcement is incredibly simple. At first glance, it's just the green bottle alongside Ferrari red. Then you notice the white space between them, together creating the Italian flag.
Two iconic Italian brands, connected through one simple visual idea. No drivers, no elaborate production and very limited assets required. It's a great example of how a little creative thinking can make an announcement far more distinctive than simply putting two logos together.
Peroni × Scuderia Ferrari: if you go bigger, tell a story
Source: Peroni
If you do have the budget, production and driver access to create something bigger, use it to tell a story.
Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0% launched its Ferrari partnership with The Brake In, a film featuring Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz breaking into the Peroni brewery to create a limited-edition run of bottles for the Tifosi, with Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur leading the operation from behind the scenes.
They could have simply put Leclerc and Sainz in front of a camera, handed them a bottle and had them cheers to the new partnership. Instead, they built a story around them.
The film is packed with little references for F1 fans. Familiar language like “box, box” and “go to Plan B” is worked into the script, Vasseur directs the operation like a race strategy, and the limited-edition bottles give the whole break-in a purpose.
It uses the people, language and dynamics fans already associate with Ferrari, while still feeling unmistakably Peroni. If you're going to invest in a bigger production, make it something fans actually want to watch.
What these F1 partnership launches have in common: an idea
While researching this article, I went back through the new F1 partnerships announced for the 2026 season looking for more recent examples. And honestly, I struggled.
There’s plenty of polished content: drivers holding products, beautiful car shots, CGI, track footage and slick edits, and plenty of the run-of-the-mill logo on car and partner lockup.
But I kept coming back to the same question: where is the idea?
The examples above all found one. Optimum Nutrition turned making a shake into the content. 1Password found a connection between securing access and the technology of an F1 team. S.Pellegrino used the visual identities of two Italian brands to create the Italian flag. Peroni built a story around F1 language, Ferrari's drivers and something created specifically for the Tifosi.
None of those ideas are the same, and that's the point.
They don't just put the brand and F1 in the same piece of content. They find the idea that makes them belong together. But they also have something else in common: they feel natural in the world of F1.
They don't interrupt what fans are there for with an ad. They complement it, using the language, culture, personalities and behaviours fans already recognise, while still feeling unmistakably like the partner brand.
That’s the sweet spot. The work feels at home in F1, but it couldn't have come from any other brand.
F1 Partners: Don’t waste the launch opportunity
Remember that for most fans, the content is the launch. They won't be at the event or read the press release; they'll discover the partnership through the team and brand's social channels. So don't treat the digital idea as an afterthought. Think from the beginning about what the fan scrolling past the announcement is actually going to see.
F1 partnerships are significant investments. The rights, activation, content and media spend can be substantial, which makes it surprising how often the launch itself is reduced to another line on the activation checklist.
Plan the launch early. Make sure you have the rights and assets you need to bring the idea to life. Go beyond the standard social lock-up or announcement film. And find the creative connection between your brand and the team or rights holder.
Most importantly, create something that only the two of you could make. That’s the opportunity. Not simply telling F1 fans you’re now a partner, but showing them what you can bring to the sport from day one.
If you're launching a new F1 or motorsport partnership, this is exactly the kind of work we do at Outlap. We help brands and agencies develop partnership strategy, creative ideas, content and activation that make better use of their rights.
Get in touch to talk about your next partnership launch.