Jessica Hawkins, Aston Martin's Head of F1 Academy, was named brand ambassador for ELEMIS, the British luxury skincare label that signed with the team earlier in 2025. The individual athlete deal sits inside a broader team partnership announced in Q1, marking ELEMIS's first named activation beyond logo placement. Financial terms were not disclosed. Hawkins will front social content and attend ELEMIS retail events through 2025, according to people familiar with the agreement.
The deal structure matters more than the dollar figure. ELEMIS joined Aston Martin as a "personal care partner" in January, appearing on team kit and hospitality areas. Most F1 team deals stop there—brand gets paddock access, logo on firesuit, activation days with drivers. This one carved out a separate athlete tier. Hawkins was selected over Aston Martin's reserve and development drivers, none of whom race in F1 proper. She competed in GB3 in 2023, joined Aston Martin's F1 Academy program in 2024, and now runs the team's Academy operations while driving select rounds. The Academy is F1's women's feeder series, launched in 2023, funded by F1 itself with $7.5 million per season distributed across ten teams.
What ELEMIS bought is exposure math that doesn't require a race seat. Hawkins has 94,000 Instagram followers, modest by Formula 1 standards but clean demographics—80% female, UK-heavy, age 18-34. That's closer to ELEMIS's customer file than the typical F1 fanbase. The brand sells serums at £89 per 30ml and runs concessions in Liberty London and Harrods. It needs aspiration, not reach. Hawkins provides the former without the $15-20 million annual cost of a midfield driver sponsorship or the compliance headaches of working around existing personal-care conflicts. Aston Martin's lead driver Fernando Alonso has haircare deals; Lance Stroll's family controls the team, limiting commercial flexibility. The Academy slot was open.
The structure also insulates ELEMIS from performance risk. F1 Academy races draw 30,000-50,000 live viewers on YouTube and run as F1 weekend support events, so ELEMIS gets paddock adjacency without paying for it twice. If Hawkins finishes fourth or fourteenth, the skincare content still runs. If she moves up to a higher series, ELEMIS retains the Aston Martin team relationship and pivots. The brand is testing whether athlete partnerships can yield customer acquisition without requiring the athlete to win. Early-stage discussions are ongoing with two other F1 Academy drivers at separate teams, per a person with knowledge. None have signed.
Other beauty and wellness brands are watching the Hawkins structure. Dermalogica sponsors McLaren but has not activated individual drivers. Clarins backs the Las Vegas Grand Prix, venue-only. The holdout is risk: beauty brands typically avoid performance-based sports because losing looks bad in premium categories. ELEMIS is betting the F1 Academy tier—credible enough to matter, junior enough to avoid weekly failure headlines—splits the difference. That calculus works if the goal is content volume, not trophy cases. Hawkins will appear in ELEMIS's spring campaign, shoot in March, rollout in April.
Aston Martin, meanwhile, is using the Academy program as a standalone revenue generator. The team operates one of ten F1 Academy entries, costs the team roughly £500,000 annually after F1's subsidy, and now carries a beauty sponsor most team principals would not have thought to pitch. Three other Academy teams have added non-endemic sponsors since January—a legal tech firm, a watch brand, a private bank—none of which appear on the main F1 team liveries. The business model is narrower audiences, lower cost, fewer conflicts. If it works, expect more luxury categories to follow ELEMIS in.
The first test arrives in May, when F1 Academy races in Miami during the Grand Prix weekend. ELEMIS will host a poolside activation at the Mandarin Oriental, Hawkins will attend, and the brand will measure retail lift in South Florida stores. If conversion justifies cost, two additional athlete deals will close before mid-season.
The takeaway
ELEMIS used F1 Academy's lower cost and cleaner demographics to test athlete beauty deals without performance risk or driver conflict.
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