What does a moisturiser have in common with a race car, other than petrolatum? The UK luxury skincare label Elemis has an answer.

“Both depend on advanced technology, precise innovation, and a deep understanding of performance,” Amy Mansell, Global Partnerships Director at Elemis, told The Business of Beauty. In July, the brand signed a multi-year agreement with Aston Martin and the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One team, becoming the first official skincare sponsor of the luxury British automaker. The brand will host co-branded experiences on and off the track aimed at tempering the adrenaline of motorsports with the relaxation of self-care through pop-up spas, limited edition collections and a skin analysis experience that takes place upon a yacht bobbing in the azure Mediterranean Sea during the Monaco Grand Prix.

From Rolex product placements to Louis Vuitton logos and spray bottles of Moët and Chandon, F1 has always represented a certain level of luxury. Now beauty brands want in on the paddock. Late last year, cosmetics label Charlotte Tilbury became the first beauty brand to seal an official partnership with the F1 Academy. Founded in 2023, the incubation program trains an all-female league of drivers with the hopes of breaking through F1’s glass ceiling. Tilbury tapped Susie Wolff, the managing director of the F1 Academy, to help front the collaboration. Jessica Hawkins, the racer who currently heads up the F1 Academy, is Elemis’ new ambassador.

Tilbury’s hallmark partnership has seemingly inspired others to experiment in the market, with Wella professionals stepping on the track this year, securing a multi-year partnership with F1 Academy and premiering a bright red branded car and suit featuring the brand’s storied mermaid logo. Williams Racing driver Carlos Sainz was chosen as a global brand ambassador for L’Oreal Paris’ Elvive hair range earlier this year, and Anastasia Beverly Hills became the latest brand to join the fleet, securing a partnership with Red Bull’s F1 Academy team, unveiled at the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix in August.

Despite the lack of female drivers on the F1 grid, the stakes for securing consumer interest are at an all time high. Beauty brands across categories are racing to secure partnerships on the paddock as the motorsport fanbase continues to diversify, with the most female fans in F1 history tuning in this season. These collaborations represent more than just the diversifying fanbase. For beauty, this is an opportunity to step onto a global stage to champion the women in the driver’s seats and grandstands, potentially setting the stage for fashion, wellness, and other female-driven sectors to step into the market as sponsors and partners.

But the F1 audience is a new kind of beast for the beauty industry. For many brands, the product placements and player endorsements that work seamlessly in female leagues like the WNBA, which saw six major brand partnerships this year, are almost impossible to implement in the F1 landscape. Thanks to the all-male driver lineup, beauty brands are forced to think creatively about how they can show up with authenticity and relevancy on the roster.

The Rise in Female F1 Fans

Over the last eight years, following Liberty Media’s acquisition of the motorsport franchise, Formula 1 has been citing a rise in female viewership and a rapidly rising female fanbase. Under new leadership came a shift in focus, highlighting team presence outside of sports channels and on social media, opening the gates for novice fans to discover the sport and raising the percentage of femme fans to ten percent.

Later, in 2022, with the onset of TikTok and the success of Netflix’s Drive To Survive, a multi-episode docuseries aimed at showing fans the behind-the-scenes of the sport’s luxurious Grand Prixs, Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali noted a drastic uptick in female interest, raising the statistic to about 40 percent. Today, female fans still represent around 40 percent of the overall global audience, and Gen-Z women are leading the charge. According to the 2025 Global F1 survey, over 70 percent of Gen-Z fans interact with F1 content daily.

“I can’t think of another sport where all participating athletes are male, yet the audience is almost an even split,” said lifelong F1 fan and PR firm Seen Group’s Global Associate Beauty Director Suzanne Scott.

Luxury brands, especially, are seeing an opportunity to connect with younger customers. “You only need to look around the F1 paddock to see names like Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon, and TAG Heuer — proof that this is a space where modern luxury is living, thriving, and evolving,” says Mansell.

The team at Elemis aims to capture the spirit of their partners and the attention of affluent fans with four co-branded gift sets featuring hallmark, results-driven products while channeling a sleek opulence through exclusive Aston Martin Aramco team-branded packaging. In the case of Charlotte Tilbury, the brand shifted away from product design to focus on on-track presence, unveiling a matching trio of car, helmet, and suit covered in the Charlotte Tilbury Hot Lips icon and inscribed with the makeup mogul’s mantra, “Makeup Your Destiny!” Since the launch of the Tilbury partnership, the F1 Academy has grown from five to six teams and now hosts 18 female drivers.

Can F1 Drive Beauty Buzz?

While partnering with teams guarantees a one-way ticket to some of motorsport’s most coveted tracks, there is more than one way for cosmetics to cash in. The most notorious of all is the brand trips, and there is no bigger brand name in trips than Tarte Cosmetics.

In what became a defining moment for the brand and influencer equality industry-wide, Tarte’s Miami 2023 Grand Prix trip was an experiment in infiltrating the growing F1 interest and fan base. It quickly backfired, prompting accusations of discrimination amongst influencers and anger from F1 fans for filling the paddock with them. The backlash from the beauty and fan community leaves brands facing a new challenge: to bring or not to bring influencers to the track.

For brands like Rhode Skin, the solution is simple: find an influencer already on the F1 radar. Immersed, familiar, chic, and undeniably trendy, Alexandra Saint Mleux emerged as the perfect pick to entice and influence F1’s growing female fan demographic. Already coined an emerging “It Girl” and appearing on the paddock at almost every race to support her partner, famed Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, Mleux became a brand ambassador for Rhode in November of 2024, collaborating on an autumnal collection of the brand’s iconic lip cases. The campaign generated a whopping 42.8 percent average engagement rate, according to the influencer marketing platform, Lefty.

Scott pointed out that F1 appeals to a world audience, and the 24 annual races provide plenty of room for marketing. “There’s real opportunity for brand amplification and campaign awareness, especially at a global level,” she said. At the same time, she forecasts a “saturation point” as more beauty companies enter the paddock.

“For the brands that can find sincere storytelling opportunities, either through ambassadorship roles or through science and technology messaging, there is a lot to gain,” Scott added.

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