Susie Wolff, managing director of F1 Academy and a former racing driver, has long been a protagonist in addressing the absence of women in the sport. The all-female F1 Academy was launched last year by the racing series to develop drivers who can step up to higher levels. But, beyond the paddock, Wolff notes, women are already a growing presence — and commercial force — in the sport.
Women are now being attracted to a sport that, traditionally, has been dominated by men. According to recent data provided by Nielsen Sports, this year, Formula One has amassed more than 300mn female fans worldwide. And, with forecasts suggesting women will control 75 per cent of discretionary spending, globally, by 2029, this presents a lucrative opportunity for brands and sponsors in a largely untapped market.
“Formula One has never been as big and as popular as it is,” says Wolff. For brands, this means “a lot more demand and supply”, she argues — particularly from the fanbase’s “core growing demographic” of 18- to 25-year-old women.
This group brings models, actors, pop stars and big brands to the sport, despite a slowdown in the luxury sector. American designer Tommy Hilfiger has been the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team’s clothing provider since 2018. Other apparel retailers — including Puma, PacSun, Reiss and Abercrombie & Fitch — have also released merchandise collaborations with F1 and its teams. Luxury conglomerate LVMH will continue this association from next year through a decade-long deal.
For Kate Byrne and Nicole Sievers, co-founders of female fan podcast and online community Two Girls 1 Formula, merchandise is finally catching up with female fans. Since 2021, after finding official offerings inadequate, they have raised more than $100,000 in revenue from designing and selling their own F1-themed merchandise. “It’s encouraging that teams do understand what the fan base is looking like now,” says Byrne.
Nonetheless, Helena Hicks, founder of the podcast and website Females in Motorsport, adds that the merchandise sold by F1 and the teams remains “incredibly male heavy” — and the limited clothing for women can often be a poor fit. She wants brands involved in F1 to “listen to women and what they would like to see”.
Puma, official F1 provider and Aston Martin partner, has tried to innovate. Its collaboration with American rapper A$AP Rocky is described by Maria Kivimaa, head of planning at sports and entertainment agency Octagon UK, as a “cross-cultural take”, combining motorsport, fashion, and streetwear. For Thomas Josnik, head of Puma’s motorsport division, the venture is all about “putting a different lens” on motorsport to reach a broader demographic.
The majority of items in Puma’s A$AP Rocky collection are unisex, designed to be worn by any fan. This is crucial, says Byrne, since “I don’t need an [F1 branded] miniskirt”.
Kivimaa similarly cautions against brands treating women as separate from other fan demographics: “That’s how you end up in the pink fanzone area.”
The rise in female F1 fans creates new commercial opportunities for brands that traditionally cater to women. Rimmel, one of the UK’s biggest make-up brands by sales, owned by beauty company Coty, has partnered with racing experience F1 Arcade in July to promote its latest mascara. Amaury De Vallois, general manager of Coty UK&I, attributes the deal to F1’s changing fan demographics.
Rimmel’s deal followed a partnership in February between F1 Academy and beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury. Wolff describes the alliance as an early example of her “bold and disruptive” approach to motorsport sponsorship.
Wolff aims to “change the future of motorsport” with the academy, supported by brands like these, and says she will add three more “dream partners” in coming months.
And the partners are making a potentially savvy business decision. According to female motorsport initiative More than Equal, more than half of female fans are likely to buy from companies that sponsor women’s sport, compared with just 0.1 per cent of male fans. Elsewhere in women’s sport, make-up brand Il Makiage’s Arsenal Women sponsorship has seen brand preference improve by a third since 2022, according to the Women’s Sport Trust.
“As a woman who is a consumer, I am drawn more towards brands who stand up for what I believe in,” Wolff says. Podcaster Hicks adds that the academy partners make up “such a powerful list of brands, it makes me want to buy them”.
“Obviously, I’m biased,” Wolff adds, “but I think we’ve put together a platform and packages which can be commercially very interesting for partners.” She highlights car livery branding, which American Express has used to showcase female-run small businesses, as well as the platform that will be provided by F1 Academy’s Netflix docuseries in 2025.
But, in spite of Wolff’s innovative partnerships and the fashion-conscious collaborations in the F1 merchandise, the commercial opportunity presented by female fans in the sport is still relatively unfulfilled.
For Hicks, F1 remains over-reliant on the popularity of key driver personalities and “needs to improve on its offerings for women, and look at how it can market itself”.
Some female-oriented and female-run companies, like Charlotte Tilbury, are partnering with female racing drivers. American cosmetics brands Anastasia Beverly Hills and e.l.f. sponsor Bianca Bustamante of the F1 Academy and Katherine Legge in Indy 500, respectively. Such sponsors are mostly absent from the male-dominated F1 grid.
“I’d love make-up brands to be on men’s cars as well,” alongside a wider range of lifestyle brands appealing to all fans, says Sievers.
Kivimaa’s advice for brands seeking to appeal to female F1 fans is simple. She says that, as well as “ensuring physical safety” for women at live sporting events and more “females or unisex toilets”, the key is “just to make sure that there’s input from women”.
