Sephora will sponsor F1 Academy beginning in the 2026 season as the series' official beauty retail partner, the company announced Thursday. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal marks the first beauty-category entrant into the three-year-old women's development series and arrives as F1 Academy adds a sixth team and expands its calendar to ten rounds alongside Formula 1 grands prix.
The partnership slots Sephora—owned by LVMH, which also controls TAG Heuer, already an Academy sponsor—into a sponsor roster that includes PepsiCo's Gatorade, Puma, and luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer. F1 Academy, launched in 2023 under Formula 1's direct management, runs fifteen drivers across five teams in spec Tatuus T-421 chassis. The series exists to address the talent pipeline problem: no woman has started a Formula 1 race since Lella Lombardi in 1976, and the junior ladder has historically lacked both funding and competitive seat density for female drivers.
Sephora's entry reflects two converging sponsor trends. First, beauty and wellness brands are testing motorsport as premium lifestyle plays rather than pure performance marketing. Gatorade's F1 Academy deal, signed in 2024, followed a similar logic: paddock access, hospitality inventory, and content rights around a demographically younger, more female audience than Formula 1's core broadcast skew. Second, LVMH's multi-brand approach to motorsport is now layered: TAG Heuer sponsors the main F1 championship as official timekeeper, while Sephora targets the Academy's distinct audience and activation windows. The holding company gets two sponsorship categories, two demographic slices, and two sets of hospitality assets under one negotiating umbrella.
The timing matters. F1 Academy's 2026 season will run ten rounds, up from eight in 2025, and the series is adding a sixth team after MP Motorsport, Rodin Carlin, Campos Racing, ART Grand Prix, and Prema Racing filled the initial five slots. More teams mean more car livery, more driver content, more trackside activation real estate. Sephora will presumably receive branding on team kits, paddock presence at all ten rounds, and integration into F1 Academy's digital content, which skews heavily toward Instagram and TikTok. The series' social accounts have leaned into behind-the-scenes driver content and lifestyle angles, a natural fit for beauty product placement.
Disney's expanded deal with F1 Academy, announced this week ahead of the Shanghai Grand Prix, adds another content distribution layer. Disney Consumer Products now holds licensing rights across both the main championship and the Academy, meaning Sephora's sponsorship assets could extend into co-branded merchandise or retail activations tied to Disney's F1 product lines. The Academy's sponsor stack is starting to resemble a condensed version of the main series: watch partner, beverage partner, apparel partner, and now beauty partner, each occupying exclusive category lanes.
The unanswered question is valuation. F1 Academy sponsorships trade at a steep discount to the main championship—TAG Heuer's F1 title sponsorship runs north of $50 million annually, while Academy deals are believed to sit in the low-to-mid seven figures. Sephora's deal likely falls somewhere in that range, though LVMH's existing relationship with Formula 1 through TAG Heuer may have produced bundled pricing. What matters more than the number is the category: beauty brands have historically ignored motorsport, and Sephora's move signals they now see ROI in trackside hospitality, driver endorsements, and content integrations aimed at the 18-to-34 female demo that Academy broadcasts pull.
Watch for Sephora's activation strategy when the 2026 calendar is finalized, expected in Q4 2025. The series will almost certainly include races at Monaco, Silverstone, and Circuit of the Americas, all high-hospitality-value venues. Also watch for driver-specific beauty partnerships—Academy drivers like Aurelia Nobels and Carrie Schreiner have existing social followings, and Sephora could structure individual endorsement deals as extensions of the series sponsorship. Finally, watch LVMH's broader motorsport spend: if Sephora's F1 Academy deal works, expect other LVMH beauty brands (Fenty, Givenchy Beauty) to test similar plays in junior series or regional championships.
The Academy's sixth team announcement is due before summer. The new entrant will need title sponsorship, and Sephora's arrival suggests beauty, wellness, and lifestyle brands are now in the mix alongside traditional motorsport backers.
The takeaway
Sephora's F1 Academy deal opens the beauty category in women's motorsport and signals LVMH is layering brand exposure across the F1 pyramid.
f1-academysephoralvmhsponsorshipbeautymotorsport
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