“Christmas is cancelled!”
That was the feeling coming from partnership teams up and down the Abu Dhabi paddock as they prepared to enter the most momentous off-season in F1’s history.
With the 2025 season wrapping up later than ever and the 2026 campaign already hurtling toward us – triggered by a seismic shift in regulations and multiple pre-season tests – brands can’t afford to sit in the stand-by position until the 11 teams hit the grid in Melbourne.
For sponsors and partners, this offers a compelling opportunity to get ahead of the return to racing. Below are five ways brands in Formula 1 can maximise comms in this unusually compressed and consequential winter break.
1. Treat pre-season as part of the campaign
With three pre-season tests scheduled – a private shakedown at Barcelona in late January, followed by two Bahrain tests in February – teams will begin revealing new cars and liveries long before the first lights go green.
For brands, that means the “off-season” should be the first phase of their campaigns. Use this window to build anticipation through teasing launch dates, revealing behind-the-scenes work, sharing sneak peeks of tech integration and hinting at upcoming activations.
Aston Martin has already demonstrated the potential of this, working with title partner Aramco to release early technical explainers and sustainability content linked to the new fuel innovations. This positions the partner as part of the team’s preparation narrative, not a passive passenger.
2. Integrate with the engineering narrative
Next season brings a revolution in the very machinery of F1. The upcoming regulations overhaul both chassis and power unit, featuring hybrid systems with a far heavier electric component, lighter and more agile cars, active aerodynamics and the first genuine reset of technical rules in many years.
For brands, especially tech partners, this is a unique moment. If you are supplying software, telemetry tools, sustainability technology, data analytics, ergonomics or hybrid-system support, now is the time to highlight that partnership.
There are few other sports where brands can genuinely become part of the winning team and the new rules have led to a massive influx of partner tech looking to capitalise on this.
Whether that is Ferrari utilizing AWS’s machine-learning capability to improve pit-stop strategy or Red Bull Racing performing 4 billion pre-race simulations on Oracle’s cloud, it is clear that there are some amazing stories to tell.
3. Human stories behind the tech
Because everything starts earlier, the time away from the track becomes fertile ground for storytelling and human connection.
Introduce the people behind the scenes – engineers, designers, composites specialists, data scientists – those who are working long hours on the new cars. This is an opportunity to work in partnership with a team to document this journey and bring your audience behind-the-scenes access to new developments.
In a recent TikTok series AT&T demonstrated how its technology connects team members across the world in real-time to make split-second decisions seamlessly:
4. Synchronise launch-activation calendars
Because teams are launching new cars from January, comms should be aligned accordingly.
Brands should map out marketing calendars now that reflect that earlier cadence: scheduling social activation, PR content, digital campaigns, content drop dates – all linked to the car-reveal, test runs and technical teases.
BWT and Alpine exemplified this last year by owning the early-season visual identity cycle with the return of the famous pink livery, which dominated pre-season social feeds.
5. Lay the groundwork
With a winter lay-off that is shorter, busier and more competitive than ever, preparation becomes a powerful differentiator.
Clear, well-structured media materials, with sharp messaging, approved quotes and strong imagery make life easier for F1’s time-poor journalists and dramatically increase the likelihood of your story cutting through.
This is also the moment to complete the foundational work that often gets overlooked once the season starts: conducting spokespeople audits, refining narrative pillars, mapping out story matrices and understanding when and where your target audiences consume content.
These exercises may feel operational, even mundane but they create the strategic scaffolding that ensures every piece of communication lands with purpose.
This off-season isn’t a break, it’s an opportunity. Brands that treat it as such through engaging early, telling real stories, aligning calendars and embedding themselves in the transformation will reap the benefit when racing resumes.
