Beauty Brands Rev Up Their Formula 1 Drive

PARIS — Rochas’ sleek, golden Formula 1 car gets rolled onto a track by glamorous women in body-con uniforms and heels. The all-female team’s lead driver spritzes on Audace, the brand’s new fragrance.

The race is on, both in the campaign clip where the Rochas car revs into pole position to win the gold, and for beauty brands as they accelerate their partnerships with the sport.

F1, now in its 75th season, has a big role to play, ranking as the most popular yearly sport series, with an audience of 750 million, according to Nielsen Sports. Of that, women account for 41 percent of the fan base, allowing F1 to shed its traditionally male image, while the 16-to-24 set is its fastest-growing age group.

F1’s sponsorship is up 10 percent on-year and has reached in 2025 already more than $2.9 billion, according to Ampere. Meantime, the sport is broadening its reach, now boasting 65 million followers across its social media platforms, for instance.

“Since 2020, the fan base for F1 has grown 38 percent; their broadcast coverage in the U.S. has doubled since 2018,” said Stacey Andrade-Wells, chief marketing officer at Liquid I.V., the electrolyte drink mix. “This is a really growing space for attention and for brands to be able to reach their consumers.”

Beauty brands, also including Charlotte Tilbury and Elemis, have taken note and turned F1 into a new runway.

The sport, once elite, burst onto the world stage in part thanks to the Netflix series “Drive to Survive,” which helped draw a younger and more diverse audience. Social media and gaming have helped, as well.

“Sports is a way to hit those audiences more effectively than traditional advertising,” said Louise Johnson, global chief executive officer at Fuse, a sport and entertainment marketing agency.

Beauty plays a big role in sports. Personal care is essential to athletes; hair and makeup are powerful tools for self-expression while athletes wear a uniform, and sports and beauty both stand at the intersection of physical and mental well-being, she said.

Sport is at the junction of adjacent passions, too, such as fashion, music and wellness. “Everything is crossing and bleeding over at the moment,” Johnson said. “That is why you are starting to see a lot of beauty brands coming in.”

“The unique thing about Formula 1 is it has this opportunity to stretch across sports, but also entertainment [and] hospitality. And [since] it has such broad shoulders, that allows it to permeate culture,” Andrade-Wells continued. “Beauty and well-being consumers are always on the leading edge of trends and culture. What becomes important to them also becomes important to the brands that they are trying to reach and connect with them.”

Like F1, beauty brands have their sights trained on China and the Middle East as two main growth markets, pointed out Olivier Tjon, a neuromarketing pioneer and cofounder of Beyond Reason consultancy.

“Formula 1, just as a platform, is really interesting to reach those audiences,” he said, underlining the new races being added to the calendar are located in those markets, where there are cultural differences driving beauty product sales.

“In China, the purchase of Western luxury cosmetics brands is often motivated by the need for assertiveness by Chinese women,” Tjon said. “Formula 1 is something also that you strongly associate with [being] daring.”

He said a dominant purchase motive in cosmetics for women in the Middle East is to please others, primarily their partners. So it is possible they’d buy into products associated with the sport to do that.

Forget Penelope Pitstop of the 1960s cartoon “Wacky Races.” That’s ancient history. Beauty brands are taking newfangled creative approaches to women and race-car driving — particularly F1.

In its campaign, Rochas shows the female car driver after winning the race — and out-driving a man — proudly holding aloft an oversize Audace fragrance bottle as a trophy. The flacon is shaped like a women’s body swathed in Rochas couture, with hands on hips, girl-boss style.

“Why would it be only for men?” said Philippe Benacin, chairman and chief executive officer of Interparfums SA, which owns Rochas, speaking of F1. He explained the idea of the sport tie-in is to empower women.

That strategy has already paid dividends. Audace was launched in France in February, and in the first quarter of this year, Rochas fragrance sales rose 13 percent to 10.3 million euros. “Audace is driving the growth,” Benacin said.

“Formula 1 can be a catalyst for change,” said Séan Harrington, Elemis’ cofounder and CEO.

The British skin care brand in February became the Aston Martin Aramco F1 team’s first official skin care partner. The three-year tie-in began on March 14 at the Australian Grand Prix, where Elemis hosted an activation at the hospitality suite for it and Aston Martin Aramco’s VIP guests.

The partnership includes product collaborations, such as travel-size collections. The Elemis brand name is printed onto the Aston Martin Aramco race cars, alongside the likes of Boss and Oakley.

Harrington considered the F1 tie-in an easy decision and natural fit. “I wanted to try and find an opportunity for the next five, 10 years to inject another layer and another level to the brand — to give it a new energy, a new drive,” he said.

The executive has long admired Lawrence Stroll, part owner and executive chairman of Aston Martin, as well as owner of its F1 team.

“Here is an iconic British brand with amazing heritage, great legacy,” Harrington said. “It represents performance, luxury, comfort — so many aspects of similar aspirations we have for Elemis that I felt there’s a real opportunity here for two brands to come together.”

He was struck by how at the Aston Martin factory every executive Harrington met was striving to win. “I thought: This is perfect for our business,” Harrington said. “It is an opportunity I didn’t want to lose. I was more interested in it from a cultural aspect and what it could change within my organization. That positivity, energy, that need to drive to survive is not just a few words. It’s a real meaning in their world. They’re driving to survive — but also to win.”

Like Elemis, the car brand also has a keen focus on CSR. Harrington thought a partnership would make for a winning formula. “I’ve been proven right,” he said. “It has really changed the game for us. It isn’t just about motor racing — this was about culture, people and brand partnerships.”

The executive believes it goes beyond traditional branding. “It’s finding a way to bring that partnership to life with our clients, consumers and also relationships in business all over the world. That’s what’s so exciting.”

At recent races in Melbourne, Australia, and Shanghai, Elemis invited wholesalers and distributors, hotel and spa partners, and brand ambassadors.

“My guests get to experience being part of [Aston Martin’s] team — not just a glass of Champagne in a hospitality suite,” Harrington said. “You’re meeting the drivers and are up close and personal to the team members. You’re in the garage, timing the pitstops with them — you’re in it. It’s unique. We’re looking at this over a longer term.”

This year the Elemis Aston Martin pitstop has grown into a full-blown “pitstop spa” for Miami. At other races, an Airstream will be involved in the experience, which Harrington described as another level of luxury on the road for all of Elemis’ customers.

The brand, meanwhile, is developing relationships with drivers — both male and female — and following new drivers’ journeys in professional sport. “I see no other athlete in the world that goes through what they go through,” Harrington said. “From a pressure valve, to a constantly always-on perspective, from a physical, nutritional and mental-health perspective, it’s got all the ingredients to be so special to so many.”

Product-wise developments can expand to nutrition, health, wellness, beauty and rehydration. “We’re at the start,” Harrington said. “Then, of course, there’s the Brad Pitt movie [‘F1’] to come, which will obviously help with the popularity all over the world.”

He believes the potential audience for the sport is vast. “It’s just the beginning,” said Harrington, adding Elemis’ tie-in with the Aston Martin Aramco team has already brought a higher level of new people to both brands than they’ve ever experienced with a partnership before.

Last year, when Charlotte Tilbury became the first beauty company and female-founded brand to be an official sponsor of F1 Academy, the female-only racing championship founded by Formula 1 that supports women drivers, it “sent a shockwave through the industry,” Johnson said.

Tilbury does not find it shocking, however. “Both beauty and motorsport thrive on innovation and breakthroughs in technology, and we are both fueled by our passionate, devoted global communities,” she said. “Women have been so underrepresented in this sport.

“When I found out that 40 percent of F1 fans are female, yet more women have orbited the earth than driven an F1 car, I wanted to change that,” Tilbury said. “I realized there was an opportunity to make waves and champion diversity, inclusion and representation beyond the beauty industry.

“Through this partnership, I want young women and girls around the world to be inspired to pursue their dreams and feel their most confident,” continued Tilbury, who was introduced as a girl to F1 by her father, a friend of the late, legendary race-car driver Niki Lauda. “It is the perfect example of what I set out to do with my brand, which is empowering everyone, everywhere to feel and look like the most beautiful version of themselves through the transformative power of makeup, skin care and fragrance.”

Tilbury explained the impact so far has been huge. “In 2024, we gathered a showstopping global reach of over 14.3 billion, bringing widespread awareness and engagement with this program,” she said. Her brand itself counts more than 12 million social media fans.

In 2025, F1 Academy has grown to include a sixth team, which resulted in a 20 percent increase of participation in the sport with 18 female drivers.

Charlotte Tilbury kickstarted this season in Shanghai, then will continue to race cities such as Montreal, Canada; Zandvoort, the Netherlands, and Las Vegas. The brand is championing Chloe Chong, the youngest driver in the 2023 field, who pilots the Charlotte Tilbury Hot Lips Car.

“We’ll have magical pop-ups on and off track, with confidence-boosting touch-up stations and much more,” said Tilbury, who also gifts drivers products from the Pillow Talk collection.

For International Women’s Day on March 8, the beauty brand donated the totality of online sales of the label’s Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray to Motorsport UK’s Girls Karting Academy. Proceeds funded, as well, the Charlotte Tilbury Scholarship at the academy in support of one girl’s participation in a Club 100 Karting Championship season next year.

“Women around the world are invested in seeing other women thrive and pursue their dreams,” said Tilbury. “As a female founder, it is so important to me that we support the next generation of women to become rulebreakers and changemakers. I am incredibly passionate about women pursuing their dreams, feeling their most confident and thinking limitlessly. We are empowering these remarkable young women to break barriers within the sport and beyond.”

Liquid I.V. in 2024 partnered with the Miami Grand Prix on a multiyear collaboration as the race’s first functional hydration partner. It also marked the company’s foray into the worlds of F1 and motorsport.

In Miami, Liquid I.V. had a Race House and also carried out a full-city takeover with billboards, gave out samples (that the brand dubs “sticks in hand”) inside and outside the Paddock Club and general admissions areas, and teamed with Hope Hydration to create stations allowing customers to refill water. Liquid I.V. also did its first in-field marketing with branded cyber trucks that drove around Miami proffering samples. Altogether, 19,000 were given out.

For its second season at the Miami race, Liquid I.V. will be on the grounds on Sunday with an even more immersive fan experience in the Liquid I.V. Race House.

“It’s truly a sensory experience, where fans will be able to indulge in our brand’s flavor and function experience,” Andrade-Wells said. “There’s going to be an opportunity to really feel the transformation from being dehydrated to hydrated.”

Racegoers will be able to taste for the first time the brand’s limited-edition mystery flavor, which comes in custom F1 packaging. “They’ll be able to have a lot of fun, get some branded prizes and merchandising that’s up for grabs,” said Andrade-Wells.

Branded hydration stations will be throughout the entire campus. To make the experience more accessible to all F1 fans, Liquid I.V. is generating behind-the-scenes content for social media

“We’re doubling down on our partnership and expanding to the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix later this year,” Andrade-Wells said. “In an effort to really lean into that element of accessibility, we’re going to be doing a national giveaway in retail, where you can enter for a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Las Vegas Grand Prix.”

There is also a racing game on the Liquid I.V. website, where people can customize a car and vie with others. Online, its first cobranded product will be available, too.

To help fuel Liquid I.V.’s full 360-degree experience, the brand will put in place out-of-home advertising, and its field-marketing team is giving out samples in Miami. Some 250,000 are expected to be handed out.

“We did see a really significant increase in our brand awareness following last year’s activation,” said Andrade-Wells, adding Liquid I.V. is constantly looking for opportunities to connect with its consumers during peak hydration periods.

“With our consumers, we focus on four different usage occasions: heat, exercise, travel and nightlife,” she said. “The Formula 1 Miami event is at the intersection of all four of those. Our big priority is to go bigger and better – to show up even in a more dramatic way.”

Other beauty brands, such as Givenchy, Ralph Lauren and L’Oréal Paris, have signed F1 racers as ambassadors. And an increasing number are getting in on the general car-racing action. 

E.l.f. sponsors professional race car driver Katherine Legge in the Indy 500, for instance. That partnership was the first time a beauty brand had been affiliated with the event.

“Katherine Legge is proof of our mission in motion: standing with every eye, lip, and face that dares to dream,” said Patrick O’Keefe, chief integrated marketing officer at E.l.f. Beauty. “From day one, we recognized a force of nature in her – bold, relentless and unapologetically unstoppable.”

Expect many more beauty brands racing into F1.

“It’s not a question of ‘should we,’ it’s more a question of ‘how soon can we join the grid?’” Johnson said.