Formula 1 now has more partners than ever before – with 368 across the 11 teams and the championship itself.
This commercial ecosystem is often discussed in headlines – record deals, new title sponsors, global brand tie-ins – but rarely mapped in full.
Sector’s partnership database, The Grid, is designed to do exactly that. It tracks the commercial relationships across F1 and its teams, categorising partners by industry and allowing patterns to emerge beyond individual announcements.
Viewed collectively, the data reveals far more than a list of logos on a car. It shows how teams structure their commercial strategies, which sectors are growing in influence and where the sport’s economic centre of gravity truly sits.
Here, Sector picks three key areas that show how scale, enterprise weighting and industrial foundations are shaping the modern F1 partnership model.
The partnership table: scale first, strategy second
The simplest way into F1’s commercial ecosystem is to start with a single question: how many partners does each team actually have?
Sector’s Grid database allows us to answer that cleanly – and the raw totals provide a useful jumping-off point before deeper structural patterns begin to emerge.
At the top sits the McLaren Mastercard F1 Team, with 54 commercial relationships across its programme. On its own, that ranking is just arithmetic. But it immediately signals distinct commercial philosophies across the grid.
McLaren’s position is not accidental. In recent seasons, the team has deliberately expanded its commercial platform, increasing defined partner tiers and broadening the mix of brands it accommodates.
Rather than concentrating value among a handful of major backers, it has leaned into scale. The result is the largest partner ecosystem in F1 – and a model built around diversification rather than exclusivity.
That approach is not universal.
The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, another front-running outfit, lists 29 partners – almost half McLaren’s total. The contrast underlines a different commercial philosophy. Where McLaren has expanded aggressively, Mercedes has historically operated with a more concentrated portfolio, built around fewer, high-value relationships.
Scale, in other words, is a strategic choice.
The championship itself is also a significant commercial actor. With 31 partners at series level – including recent additions such as Standard Chartered – F1 now operates inventory comparable to several teams. Growth is not confined to the pitlane.
Then there are the two newest projects.
The Cadillac F1 Team’s eight partners reflect timing rather than ambition. As a new entrant, it is still constructing its ecosystem – prioritising foundational relationships before scale.
The case of the Revolut Audi F1 Team is more nuanced. While positioned as a ‘new’ team, it inherits part of Sauber’s existing partnership base.
That foundation helps explain its mid-grid total of 25. But since formally launching its F1 programme, Audi has added strategically aligned names including adidas, bp, ElevenLabs, Gillette, Perk, Paulaner and Revolut as title partner. The blend suggests deliberate portfolio design, not passive inheritance.
Taken together, these headline counts are not the conclusion. They are the entry point. From here, the deeper question becomes not how many partners each team has – but what kind.
The enterprise tilt of modern F1
If scale tells us how teams approach the market, the next question is structural: what kind of companies are actually investing in F1?
Across Sector’s Grid database, which now tracks 368 commercial relationships, 56% fall into the B2B category, with the remaining 44% consumer-facing.
That split is revealing.
While F1 remains a global consumer spectacle, the majority of its commercial relationships are built around enterprise infrastructure rather than retail visibility.
Information technology providers, industrial manufacturers, financial institutions and professional services firms collectively outweigh fashion labels, hospitality groups and lifestyle brands.
For the purposes of this analysis, companies were classified by their primary commercial model. Enterprise technology, automotive engineering, manufacturing, financial services and corporate services were grouped as B2B.
Consumer brands – from fashion and food to media and gambling – were grouped as B2C. Some businesses operate across both markets, particularly in financial services and telecommunications, but were categorised based on their core revenue focus rather than their activation style.
The result is not an overwhelming imbalance, but a clear shift.
That weighting has been reinforced in the run-up to the new season. Last year, Williams announced a title partnership with Atlassian – that in itself was a statement – an enterprise software company stepping into title sponsorship.
Adding to that this year, the rebranded Atlassian Williams F1 Team has partnered with Barclays and Anthropic, strengthening both its institutional finance and artificial intelligence footprint.
Even where consumer-facing brands enter, they often sit within a broader enterprise-heavy portfolio. Williams’ addition of Estrella and Wilkinson Sword illustrates that F1 still attracts lifestyle and FMCG names, but those relationships exist alongside a growing spine of technology and financial partners.
The pattern is repeated across the grid. Enterprise technology remains the single largest umbrella category in the dataset, with financial services the second largest. The commercial board increasingly resembles a global business network layered with consumer brands, rather than the other way around.
That does not mean F1 has stopped being a consumer marketing vehicle. With 44% of relationships still retail-facing – spanning fashion, hospitality, gambling, luxury goods and food & beverage – the sport remains one of the most powerful branding platforms in sport.
Engineering still underpins the grid
If the B2B figures explain the direction of travel, the industry split shows where the commercial core still sits.
Across the Grid dataset, 45 relationships fall into Automotive & Engineering, compared with 24 in the Performance Lifestyle category, which includes sportswear, sleep technology, fitness, grooming and energy brands.
The difference is not marginal. It reflects the sport’s DNA.
Automotive manufacturers, tyre suppliers, lubricant specialists and industrial engineering firms remain central to the commercial architecture of F1.
Even as the series expands its entertainment footprint, its partner board still carries the imprint of a high-performance engineering business.
Modern automotive and industrial relationships increasingly focus on sustainability, energy transition and advanced materials.
Battery suppliers and fuel technology partners are as prominent as traditional carmakers, reinforcing F1’s positioning as a development platform rather than just a marketing vehicle.
At the same time, the performance lifestyle cluster is no longer peripheral.
Sportswear brands now sit prominently on cars and team kit. Recovery, sleep and human-optimisation technologies have entered the paddock as teams place greater emphasis on marginal gains away from the garage.
Scuderia Ferrari HP’s move to secure WHOOP is a case in point. The wearable performance brand was understood to be in demand across multiple teams, yet Ferrari moved first. The deal reflects a growing belief that human performance data is now as strategically valuable as mechanical data.
Meanwhile, the Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team recently announced an eye-catching deal with sleep technology specialist Eight Sleep.
But even with that momentum, the numbers remain clear. At 24 relationships, the performance lifestyle category is materially smaller than the engineering backbone.
In other words, while the visual identity of F1 may increasingly feature fashion collaborations and athlete-driven branding, the structural weight of its commercial ecosystem remains industrial.
F1’s commercial model is expanding outward – embracing performance, lifestyle and consumer brands – but it continues to be anchored in engineering and enterprise infrastructure.
The balance may evolve, but for now the grid still reflects the business it was built on.
