It’s a winning formula that’s growing year on year. And when it comes to glamour and prestige, the Monaco event is the sport’s spiritual home. As the Grand Prix speeds into the Principality, we explore the luxury brands bolstering the sport’s continued success.
Those of a certain vintage may recall the era when Formula 1 sponsorship was limited to the logos of tyre and oil companies, embroidered onto drivers’ overalls. Readers not even in their fiftieth year, meanwhile, will remember the F1 cars of decades yore being emblazoned with the branding of John Player Special and Marlboro cigarettes, thanks to a rather seedy love affair between motorsport and tobacco—one which started in 1968 and lasted until the Fédération Internationale de L’Automobile phased out the relationship in the early 2000s.
How things have changed. Today, luxury is the patron saint of motorsport: a milieu sprayed, draped and festooned with the imperious insignias of the world’s most powerful high-end brands.
What factors have precipitated and propelled this transformation? Over to Louis Vuitton’s chairman and CEO Pietro Beccari, speaking in the wake of the world’s mightiest luxury brand group, LVMH, being named Official Global Partner of Formula 1 earlier this year—a partnership which will see Moët Hennessy luxury spirit Belvedere become the sport’s first-ever Official Vodka Partner and iconic Champagne brand Moët & Chandon returning as the Official Champagne of Formula 1.
“The synergy of our two worlds is echoed in the savoir faire of our ateliers and garages, artisans and engineers,” he commented, also referring to a “shared ambition to always strive for innovation, craft and precision”.
Stefano Domenicali, president and CEO, Formula 1, referred to “a partnership between two global icons linked first and foremost by their great passion for innovation, excellence and creativity”, while Emanuele Venturoli, communication manager at RTR Sports Marketing once told Robb Report that the appeal for luxury brands comes down to motorsport at its highest level being “highly technological, future-oriented, fast, exciting, very sexy”.
Nicolas Jayr—the Perpignan-born-andbred vice president of global partnerships at motorsport-focused cross-media creative agency Race Service—has also talked of a technological correlation. “At its core, F1 is a battle in which man and machine are pushed to the limit,” he once said, “and that’s a very emotional, very gritty concept. Also there’s this chasing of tiny increments of improvement—that’s something that really resonates with luxury brands and their values.” Jayr also points out that “in F1, decisions and big outcomes are based on split-second incidents”, and is not the first to indicate how this links the sport irresistibly with a commodity at the heart of art de vivre, horology—which has enjoyed a major presence in F1 since Rolex became the overall sponsor for Formula 1 as of the 2013 season.
“The creation of my watches emulates the world of F1 development’s system of thinking,” as Richard Mille once put it to Elizabeth Doerr, a regular contributor to this publication. “It is a no-nonsense world; every part of the car must have a specific function working at the highest level and a certain quality, especially under stressful conditions. Also, every gram counts— many people don’t realise that F1 cars are really weighed by the gram during their development and construction. This approach really appeals to me. It’s a balancing act, a pushing of the envelope.”
Patrick Pruniaux, CEO of Girard-Perregaux—which has enjoyed a partnership with Aston Martin for four years—agrees: “If timekeeping has fascinated motorsport fans for over a century, watchmakers have always been confronted with the challenges of measuring time,” he says. “These two industries naturally attract each other and share a lot of the same characteristics… the passion for motorsports and Formula 1 goes beyond simple appreciation for the cars and is similar to the passion that brings the watch industry to life—pushing creativity and technical innovation to create exceptional timepieces.”
Hearing Mille and Pruniaux’s sentiments, there should be little wonder that so many other watch brands have also got in on the act—IWC Schaffhausen, for instance, has been involved with the Mercedes F1 team since 2013, and French brand Bell & Ross with Alpine since 2016. To find out what really makes Formula 1 and luxury brands so endlessly compatible though, the factor with the heftiest pull of these two worlds into each other’s orbits, just listen to seven-time Formula One World Drivers’ Championship title winner Lewis Hamilton.
“Formula 1 is a sport that has so many glamorous sides to it—the cars, the travel, the high-speed adrenaline, the fashion, the lifestyle,” he says. “It’s a rare world, and it’s a world that I love being part of.”
Winding and hair-pinning through the narrow city streets of Monte-Carlo and La Condamine, flanked by the world’s most desirable real estate and the yacht-lined Port Hercules, Monaco’s Grand Prix—which this year will boast TAG Heuer as its first-ever Title Partner—is the jewel of the motorsport calendar: the nucleus of the F1-luxury fusion and the sport’s spiritual home. Here, it packs all the elements mentioned above—but with the glamour and prestige turbocharged.
Moreover, it’s an event which invigorates Monaco’s cultural essence. As always, we look forward to soaking up its endless kinetic energy with you trackside.
