World championship leader Kimi Antonelli made Formula 1 history as the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS driver stormed from 19th on the grid to take the win at the Pirelli Italian Grand Prix.
Victory at his home race extends Antonelli’s lead at the top of the standings and saw the 20-year-old become the first Italian to win on home soil since 1966.
While the action on track delivered, so too did the activations around the race weekend, with Monza once again proving a popular location for F1 partners.
Here, Sector picks the three standout activations from across the weekend that demonstrated how those brands are using F1 races to engage fans and tell new stories.
Apple x L’Industrie
Apple TV took over L’Industrie Pizzeria in New York’s Little Italy from 3-5 September, transforming the venue into what it called an American outpost of Monza’s “Temple of Speed” for the race weekend.
The activation included a limited-edition Monza-inspired menu, headlined by the Monzarita Slice, an upside-down Margherita created by Florence-born chef Massimo Laveglia, alongside two Monza-inspired pastries.
Beyond the food, Apple built a three-shirt capsule collection with Race Service, curated Apple Music playlists, and live in-store streams of practice and qualifying sessions throughout the weekend, all free and open to the public.
The activation is a clean example of a broadcast partner using a race weekend to sell its own product rather than the race itself, Apple holds the exclusive US broadcast rights to F1, and this event exists to drive awareness of that offering among a New York audience who never left Manhattan, rather than to court fans physically at Monza.
Barilla x F1
Barilla took its Italian Grand Prix activation directly onto the grid itself.
On the Thursday evening before the race, the brand staged La Tavolata, a nearly 100-metre communal dinner table set up on the Monza starting grid, bringing together more than 200 people from across the F1 paddock.
Team Principals, mechanics, engineers, strategists, and media were all involved – with the dinner was curated by three-Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura, built around Barilla pasta in partnership with DO&CO, the F1 Paddock Club’s official catering supplier.
With Barilla also a team partner of Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, driver Yuki Tsunoda attended the event alongside his race engineer.
The concept leaned on a shared idea between racing and cooking, that neither a Grand Prix result nor a Michelin-starred kitchen is ever the work of one person alone, however visible the person at the front of it might be.
Barilla paired that paddock-facing moment with a separate public activation in Milan. From 3 to 6 September, Piazza San Babila hosted a four-day experiential event open to the public, featuring tasting sessions around a table shaped like the Monza circuit, show cooking, and a new limited-edition pasta shape, Gran Ruote Barilla Racing Edition.
UniCredit x Scuderia Ferrari HP
UniCredit’s activation split across two distinct strands, one physical, one digital.
In Monza itself, the bank installed a Ferrari SF-24 show car outside its Piazza Roma branch from 4 to 7 September, alongside two driving simulators, giving fans a photo opportunity with a personalised polaroid and hands-on time behind the wheel with a full briefing beforehand.
Separately, UniCredit launched Unlimited Racing Team, a personalised digital experience built with Ferrari, letting fans work out which role within a winning team – Strategist, Performance Lead, or Data Analyst – best matches how they think.
The experience opens with a UniCredit introduction before Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc guide participants through the rest of the journey.
The digital experience is tied to a live prize draw running from 20 July to 15 November, offering winners Ferrari hospitality access at next year’s Italian Grand Prix. It’s part of a wider platform UniCredit calls Bound by Passion, United in Excellence, framing the bank’s Ferrari partnership around shared values of ambition and collaboration rather than branding alone.
Between the branch takeover and the digital experience, UniCredit’s activation reaches fans both at the circuit and anywhere with an internet connection, a wider net than most single-site trackside activations manage.
Seen a specific activation you think we should cover? Let us know which one.
