McLaren Racing and Aston Martin F1 signed separate sponsorship agreements with Dirt Is Good, Unilever's laundry detergent brand, extending the partnerships into their respective F1 Academy programs. McLaren announced Global as an additional new race partner in the same window. The deals place a consumer packaged goods brand with household penetration across two rival constructors simultaneously—unusual in paddock practice, standard in category marketing.
Dirt Is Good targets the F1 Academy specifically, the all-female developmental series that feeds into F2 and F3 pathways. McLaren runs a team in the series; Aston Martin fields its own. The brand now appears on both team liveries and driver suits at Academy weekends, while maintaining separate activation budgets at the main F1 calendar events for each constructor. Neither team disclosed deal values, but comparable Academy-tier partnerships typically run £500,000 to £1.5 million annually per team, with upside tied to media minutes during feature-race broadcasts.
The structure matters because F1 Academy inventory is priced below main-series packages but carries higher engagement rates among the 18-34 female demographic Unilever prioritizes. The series draws 1.2 million viewers per weekend across streaming and linear, per Liberty Media's Q4 2024 metrics, with audience skew 60% female compared to F1's 35% female main-series average. Academy races air live on F1TV and as shoulder programming during Grand Prix weekends, delivering CPG brands a cleaner demo buy than the broader F1 audience mix.
McLaren's addition of Global—a UK-based radio group—suggests the team is bundling lower-tier sponsorships into thematic clusters rather than chasing single eight-figure naming-rights deals. The team has added six sponsors under £2 million each since January, none above the sidepod line, all aligned to either youth development or UK consumer reach. Aston Martin, by contrast, continues to consolidate: it cut three partners in Q1 and has not announced a new title-level sponsor since Aramco extended in September. The Dirt Is Good deal fills a gap on the engine cover but does not replace the $30 million annual shortfall left by Cognizant's partial exit.
The dual-team approach also signals Unilever's broader F1 strategy. The company owns Degree deodorant, which sponsors Haas, and now has McLaren, Aston Martin, and Academy exposure across three separate P&Ls. That fragmentation is intentional: Unilever's sports marketing division runs brand-specific budgets, not portfolio deals, letting Dirt Is Good own the youth-pipeline narrative while Degree chases the American market through Haas's US-based activation calendar. The Academy angle also protects Unilever from regulatory scrutiny—most EU jurisdictions exempt educational or developmental sports sponsorships from advertising restrictions that apply to alcohol, tobacco, or gambling.
McLaren separately confirmed Leonardo Fornaroli will drive FP1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend, the team's second rookie practice session of the season. The timing overlaps with a batch of aerodynamic upgrades on the MCL40, including a revised floor and front-wing endplates. Teams often pair rookie runs with upgrade weekends to split data collection: one car validates the new parts, the other baselines the old configuration, and the FP1 driver provides a neutral reference. Fornaroli last drove for McLaren in Abu Dhabi; he is signed to the team's junior program and races in F2 for Trident.
Watch for Unilever to announce a fourth F1 property by September, likely targeting a US-based team or a driver personal-services deal. The company's sports budget increased 12% year-over-year in its last earnings call, and its CFO specifically cited "emerging motorsport platforms" as a growth vertical. Also watch Aston Martin's Q2 financials, due in early August: the team has guided to flat sponsorship revenue despite losing Cognizant's top-line contribution, which implies either cost-cutting or a large deal not yet public. McLaren's next likely sponsorship gap is the rear-wing endplate, typically worth £3-5 million annually, now vacant after OKX shifted to the halo in March.
Dirt Is Good's franchise strategy—multiple teams, narrow demographic, Academy infrastructure—sets a template for other CPG brands pricing F1 against UEFA or NBA inventory. The brand pays less per team than a single naming-rights deal would cost, but it owns the pipeline story and splits regulatory risk. That arbitrage only works while Academy inventory stays underpriced.
The takeaway
Unilever splits McLaren and Aston Martin with Dirt Is Good, targeting F1 Academy's 60% female skew at below-market rates.
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