When F1 Academy’s partners sign up, they are not buying space on a car.
They are buying into a talent development programme. The series carries partners into every aspect of a driver’s season – from the performance science that underpins their training, to the selection process itself, to what happens when they leave the championship.
According to Karin Fink, F1 Academy’s Head of Commercial Operations, for the brands involved the starting point is not a logo placement brief but a conversation about alignment.
“We realised how important it is to have partners that share a mission and that essentially want to do something to either better the athlete, better the environment, and really work with you on what is important to you,” Fink told Sector.
The model is deliberate and, Fink argues, increasingly essential to what the series is trying to build.
Performance science
The clearest example of how that works is the Gatorade partnership with 16-year-old French driver Lisa Billard, who joins ART Grand Prix for her debut full-time season in 2026 after winning the 2025 French F4 Women’s Championship at Le Mans.
The brief when Gatorade came to F1 Academy was to bring performance science to a group of young athletes who, in many cases, were training without the kind of support their male counterparts take for granted.
“We were really, really determined to find some synergy that would provide assets to the drivers – not only to their one sponsor driver, but also to the wider field,” Fink said.
“A lot of them, for example with Gatorade – everyone these days checks electrolytes, because that must be good for you.
“The reality was that some of them didn’t have the support to actually tell them that that would either enhance or maybe distract their performance.”
Ahead of her rookie season, Billard travelled to the Gatorade Sports Science Institute at IMG Academy for a performance immersion covering sweat testing, bespoke hydration and nutrition planning, and structured recovery protocols.
“The first that we did with Lisa was send her to the GSSI in the run-up to the 2026 season for several days with her dad to essentially get assessed, train, get plans in place,” Fink said.
“That is really a partnership that I’m super proud of, because it brings the support that we say we want to provide.”
Billard herself was clear on why that support matters: “Single-seater racing pushes your body to the limit,” she said.
“You can lose up to 4kg of fluid, burn huge amounts of calories, and race in extremely hot temperatures,” she said at the time of the announcement. Working with Gatorade and GSSI to understand my hydration and recovery couldn’t be more important.”
Gatorade’s own research reinforces how significant that gap has been. While 58% of women recognise they have unique physiological needs, only 38% believe female athletes receive equal attention to their male counterparts. Just 28% of girls aged 14 to 25 feel confident fuelling their bodies for performance.
“We say we want to be an accelerator as a series – we don’t want to be the peak of female motorsport, we want to be an accelerator so that women can go further,” added Fink.
“At the moment, female athletes just don’t have the same historical research and the historical support when it comes to their performance training, and therefore a lot of women will train based on male training plans.”
Building belief
The LEGO Group’s partnership with F1 Academy operates from a different starting point but arrives at a similar destination.
Rather than performance science, LEGO’s entry point was representation – and the desire to show young girls that motorsport belongs to them.
The partnership was announced in the Las Vegas pitlane in November 2025, alongside the launch of the LEGO Speed Champions F1 Academy Race Car.
Dutch driver Esmee Kosterman, 20, had made her F1 Academy debut as the Zandvoort Wild Card in 2025, qualifying ninth and finishing seventh in Race 2 to become the only Wild Card driver to score points that season.
She stepped up to a full-time seat with MP Motorsport for 2026 as LEGO’s first-ever racing driver, with her image set to appear on product packaging distributed globally.
“The first conversation with LEGO was we want to add an F1 Academy car to the F1 car collection, and so we were last year the 11th, now the 12th car in that collection,” Fink said.
“When you see that come to life – a LEGO car – LEGO is something that anyone, every one of us have probably played with at one point or the other. It was really, really a moment that showed us that we’re relevant on the global scale.”
Kosterman spoke at the Las Vegas launch about what the partnership represented beyond the racing itself.
“To be the first driver for LEGO Racing is such an exciting opportunity. I’ve long been a fan of the LEGO brand, its creativity and what it stands for,” she said.
“I hope this inspires future generations of female drivers that with hard work and determination, anything is possible.”
LEGO’s own research added weight to the argument. 87% of girls surveyed said they wanted more opportunities for girls in motorsport, 75% said racing sounds exciting, and 52% could see themselves as a driver one day. Yet 76% of parents still thought motorsport was perceived as more for boys.
Market alignment
American Express represents a third model – one built around geographic and commercial audience alignment.
The financial services company has been an F1 Academy official partner since April 2024, and its approach to driver selection has been shaped by a clear strategic logic: back an American driver in a series that increasingly races in the United States.
For 2026, that driver is Ava Dobson – a 17-year-old who made her F1 Academy debut as the Miami Wild Card in 2025, and who became the fourth Wild Card to earn a full-time seat. She races with Hitech, the same team she drove for on home soil in Miami.
“I am really excited to be going with F1 Academy this year with American Express,” Dobson said on her confirmation.
“I’m truly super honoured to be chosen to race in the series. I can’t wait to continue to build off of that throughout the whole year and work really hard with the team and with American Express to be the best we can be.”
For F1 Academy, the logic behind the American Express driver selection is rooted in geographic alignment – supporting talent from the market the partner most wants to reach.
“American Express – they are very much looking to support an American driver, which is also fantastic, as it will resonate with their main audience,” Fink said.
“You try and accommodate and assess what the brands are looking for.”
Performance heritage
Not every partner arrives without prior knowledge of motorsport. TAG Heuer, which backs Megan Bruce, represents the more traditional entry point into the series.
“TAG Heuer – that’s very much in their history. They’ve always been supporting drivers, motorsport, and so they’re always going to look for someone that they can pick up in that narrative, but also that they can support in that,” Fink said.
Even for performance-focused brands with deep motorsport roots, the conversation quickly moves beyond branding to what they can actively provide for their driver.
“Everyone brings something to the table,” Fink said.
“In terms of driver development, the performance-focused brands are going to be helping a lot going forward with that.”
The Wild Card pipeline
Underpinning the entire partner model is F1 Academy’s Wild Card system – a mechanism that has become both a talent identification tool and a commercial opportunity in its own right.
The numbers tell part of the story. Eight Wild Card drivers have gone on to earn full-time seats since the system was introduced, with five of those promotions coming in 2025 alone.
“I probably see this as one of the most successful tools that we have in our box when it comes to buffing talent and essentially giving them a chance to shine,” said Fink.
“You can see that because there’s a lot more focus on F1 Academy, you get drivers that are more prepared, you get more of a strategic approach as to when they would like to step in – is it now, is it next year – in order to then set themselves up to potentially be part of a full season drive the following year.
The format is equally attractive from the commercial side, offering brands a scalable entry point before committing to a full season livery.
“It also gives brands the opportunity to work with drivers on a one-off basis,” Fink said.
“We have some partners that don’t have a full season livery, but they sponsor a Wild Card in their region, so for them it’s also an opportunity to tailor some of the packages and some of the marketing campaigns around that as well.”
Selecting the right driver
The question of driver selection is where the commercial and sporting worlds most visibly intersect – and where F1 Academy is most deliberate about maintaining its integrity.
“We will never choose a driver that’s not ready or that we feel is not at their best level of performance for F1 Academy just because a brand would want us to,” Fink said.
“First and foremost, we’re a racing series that wants to promote female talent.”
We will never choose a driver that’s not ready or that we feel is not at their best level of performance for F1 Academy just because a brand would want us to.
Karin Fink
Within that framework, the process becomes collaborative. F1 Academy maintains a driver pool sourced through talent scouting, karting competitions and a partnership with the Champions of the Future Academy, and partners work with the series to identify who best fits their needs from within it.
“It’s a collaborative process with the partner to see what are you looking for – are you looking for someone that’s just performance, or someone that’s really great on social media?” Fink said.
“Everyone wants to win. But the reality is that it’s an academy, so you have to also take a step back.”
What success looks like
With the series only in its fourth year, Fink is measured about how success is defined – and deliberate about the distinction between partners who are genuinely embedded and those who are not.
The difference, she argues, comes down to whether a brand sees the partnership as a marketing exercise or a long-term commercial commitment.
“Success for me is that we are a fixed part of a brand’s marketing – and we are not just an ESG initiative that a brand supports, but essentially something where they build for the long term,” she said.
“I mentioned LEGO – you’ll see packaging with their driver’s face on. That is long-term thinking. That is not a one-off initiative where you do a pop-up and get a lot of people excited about what you do. That’s long-term thinking and product integration.”
The longer-term measure will be what happens to drivers after they leave the series – and whether partners follow them into the next stage of their careers. “I think success in that sense will also probably look in the way of brands, when the drivers move on from F1 Academy, supporting them in their further careers,” she said.
“We still have to see that, but I’m positive that it’s going to happen.”
On track
For all the commercial complexity surrounding each driver, when the visor comes down the dynamic is straightforward.
Each F1 Academy operating team runs three cars and is accustomed to drivers representing partner brands alongside their team identity. The driver is a racing driver first – the brand comes second.
“The driver will absolutely be the American Express driver or the LEGO driver or the Sephora driver. But they’re definitely part of the operating team and the operating team is happy to support them,” Fink said.
“We chose those operating teams to put the drivers in. They’re first and foremost a racing driver and they are themselves. Then they represent the brand.”
The ambition behind the model extends well beyond the F1 Academy grid itself. By placing drivers inside established, professionally run operating teams, the series is preparing them for the environments they will encounter long after they leave it.
“We put them already into an environment where they learn how a really professionally run racing team operates. That gives them another advantage when they go out into the world of motor racing and further on, we hope,” she said.
“These teams know how to operate and how to perform – and from that, we’re hoping the opportunities will arise.”
