In A Changing F1 Landscape, ELEMIS Sets The Pace As The Sport’s First Beauty Sponsor

For more than 30 years, ELEMIS has been known for pioneering British skincare rooted in science, spa heritage, and wellbeing. But this year, the brand stepped far outside the treatment room and directly into one of the world’s most high-octane environments: Formula 1. Through a groundbreaking partnership with the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, ELEMIS has become the first beauty brand ever to sponsor an F1 team, a milestone that reflects not only the sport’s evolution but also the growing momentum of women in motorsport.
This first-of-its-kind collaboration was built on a convergence of aligned values and the sweeping cultural shift that has transformed Formula 1 in recent years. A sport once defined strictly by engineering, pit strategy, and a largely male fanbase has, thanks to social media and the meteoric rise of Netflix’s Drive to Survive, become a global entertainment phenomenon. By peeling back the curtain and turning drivers and team principals into household names, the series has sparked an unprecedented surge of interest from audiences who had never engaged with motorsport before–including women. Today, more than 40 percent of F1’s global audience is female, a demographic shift that hasn’t just expanded who watches the sport, but how the sport engages with the world.
For ELEMIS, this was not simply a cultural moment to observe but an opportunity to participate in. As the fanbase has grown more lifestyle-driven, wellness-oriented, and inclusive, the brand recognized a chance to enter Formula 1 in a way that felt authentic rather than decorative. ELEMIS Global Brand President Amy Mansell explains that the partnership arose from an understanding that Formula 1 had become a platform “to connect with a broader, more diverse audience, with a particular focus on championing women in and around the sport.” Aston Martin emerged as the natural partner, she says, because both organizations share values around performance, innovation, and challenging the status quo.
The sport’s pivot towards a more holistic, emotionally resonant narrative created a clear point of entry for ELEMIS, whose expertise in restoration and wellbeing complements that evolution. Mansell explains that the partnership reflects ELEMIS’s focus on innovation, self-care, and high performance and parallels the sport’s own blend of precision engineering and human endurance. “Our formulations are born from science and technology but grounded in a holistic approach to wellbeing,” she says. “Through this collaboration, we’re showcasing that self-care is not a luxury, but integral to performing at your best, both on and off the track.”
The brand’s race-weekend activations reflect that ethos, offering spa-inspired “pit-stop” treatments and hospitality programming built around restoration and ritual. But ELEMIS’s goals extend beyond experiential marketing: the brand is actively contributing to the sport’s cultural transformation. “The rapid growth of Formula 1’s female audience has been one of the most exciting shifts in sport,” Mansell says. “It reflects a broader move towards inclusivity and diversity, values that align deeply with who we are as a brand.” She sees ELEMIS’s presence as helping to broaden the definition of beauty in sport, showing that skincare, confidence, and wellbeing belong alongside strength, focus, and endurance.
This evolution also resonates deeply with Jessica Hawkins–Aston Martin’s Driver Ambassador, Head of F1 Academy for the team, and ELEMIS’s first brand ambassador–who has witnessed these changes from inside the paddock. “I’ve been involved in motorsport for 22 years now, and if you had told me when I first started that ELEMIS would be a brand partner of F1, I never would have believed you,” she says. “The female interest just wasn’t there at the time, but seeing how far we’ve come and seeing more women accepted within motorsport is so amazing.” After loving racing for so long, she shares that it’s nice to finally be able to share it with more women.
Hawkins’s career has spanned eras of racing, with very different levels of representation. “When I first started, I could maybe list on one hand the really influential women in motorsport, and now, there are so many that I don’t even actually know all of them,” she says. While the driver acknowledges the progress, though, she also emphasizes that there’s still more work to be done. “We’re not where we need to be yet, in my opinion, and I do think that’s why we need to keep doing what we’re doing.”
But that’s exactly where Mansell believes ELEMIS can carve out a meaningful role in today’s racing landscape. She believes the partnership should “celebrate women’s presence, perspective, and power across the sport,” and help make Formula 1 a place where women–as fans, engineers, athletes, and decision makers–feel represented. For her, beauty entering F1 isn’t a novelty; it’s a signal that the sport is expanding to welcome the full breadth of its audience. “By bringing skincare and self-care into Formula 1, we’re broadening the definition of beauty in this arena, showing that it can exist alongside strength, focus, and resilience,” she says. “Caring for yourself is the ultimate expression of performance.”
For Hawkins, that idea isn’t just theoretical but something she experiences intimately every day as a driver. While racing may look glamorous from the outside, the constant travel, extreme climates, long days, and relentless pressure make it difficult to maintain any sense of routine, especially when it comes to personal care. “There’s so much travel involved in my work and in my race calendar that it’s easy to sometimes forget about self-care, but I do believe that if you feel good, you perform well,” she says.
Hawkins believes it’s important for fans to see that duality reflected in the sport. “I’m just a normal girl who happens to love skincare and motorsport, and if I can enjoy both, other people can too,” she explains, noting that wellness belongs in racing just as much as engineering does. That alignment made partnering with ELEMIS feel natural. “I’m a massive fan of the brand, I love what they stand for, and we have so many similarities in what we believe in,” she says. “And it’s actually only since working with ELEMIS that I have a proper skincare routine, which is crazy, but my skin is very thankful, and I think it’s allowed me to perform that much better as well.”
ELEMIS is also contributing to the Formula 1’s future off the track. As the first B Corp-certified beauty brand on the track, it brings a sustainability perspective to a sport moving towards ambitious environmental goals. “By working across industries, we’re accelerating progress in product performance, sustainable design, and responsible business practices,” Mansell explains. She sees the partnership as a way to facilitate shared innovation and strengthen Aston Martin’s existing sustainability commitments. “Together, we’re pushing boundaries, learning from one another, and driving meaningful impact across both industries.”
Mansell hopes the partnership will encourage other women-focused brands to enter traditionally male-dominated arenas with similar purpose. “We want to set a precedent that these spaces can be engaged with authenticity and impact,” she says. “By championing diversity, celebrating female fans and athletes, and supporting inclusive initiatives, this partnership shows that wellbeing and elite sport can coexist seamlessly.”
Hawkins has felt that impact personally, sharing that the collaboration with ELEMIS has elevated the work she’s doing for women in motorsport.