Formula 1
PepsiCo has become an Official Partner of Formula One until 2030 and we spoke with Pepsico execs to explain what that means for the two companies.
On Tuesday, Formula One and Pepsico announced a global partnership that will see Sting Energy, Gatorade, and Doritos become integrated on race days.
“As part of the new agreement, PepsiCo will be prioritising the creation of meaningful fan engagement beyond just the race venues through exciting on-pack promotions, digital experiences, and unique content that will bring Formula 1 to an even wider audience.”
“This partnership includes opportunities such as immersive brand experiences in Formula 1 Fan Zones and rights for limited edition, co-branded products.”
“Sting Energy will join Formula 1 as its Official Energy Drink, while Gatorade will become the Official Partner of F1 Sprint.”
Formula 1 and @PepsiCo are delighted to announce a ground-breaking multi-year agreement that will see PepsiCo become an Official Partner of the sport until 2030.
The deal offers huge potential to both the global brands and their worldwide fans, as it joins together the thrill of… pic.twitter.com/jnBhej8OUK
— F1 Media (@F1Media) May 27, 2025
We sat down with Adam Warner, PepsiCo VP Global Sports & Entertainment Partnerships, and Vandita Pandey, VP Marketing at PepsiCo, International Beverages, Hydration and Energy, to get their perspective on the partnership.
What was the main decision to partner with Formula One?
Adam Warner: “There’s a lot of mutual value we’re going to drive between PepsiCo and Formula One. There’s a lot we can do to respectively help each other grow our businesses. Yeah. And importantly for us, you know, we see this as a big growth driver for our our business and our brands over the coming years. This deal will stretch, will start immediately. So for the balance of this year and then run through to 2030.”
“Formula One is one of, if not the fastest growing sports right now, it’s becoming much more than a sport as well, right? Become an entertainment platform. You know the work the F1 and Liberty have done over the past four or five years. It’s no longer a motorsport, it transcends that in a big way. It’s captured new audiences around the world. So that growth, you know, evolving into a broader entertainment proposition, is very attractive to us as it’s grown. It’s also driving engagement with a younger audience younger cohort. Incredibly interested. Strategically important to us in terms of the next generation of drinkers.”
“It’s very global, in its audience, but it’s got 24 races, you know, across what, 9-10 months of the year, which follow the sun around the world. So these almost act for us, like many Super Bowls or many Champions League finals, right? Where some of our big markets, what we call anchor markets, can really get behind this, you know, to drive real engagement with fans and grow for our business
“That global profile. But in a way which taps into local relevance by having the races around the world, you know, I think they’re the components which you know is made this very strategically attractive to us.”
What does this partnership mean for Sting Energy?
Vandita Pandey: “Sting is, I would say, a younger brand when you look globally at the rest of the PepsiCo portfolio, but it’s on fire. It is the fastest-growing beverage brand in our portfolio, and it has grown.”
“It’s fun, it’s playful, it’s irreverent. It tastes great. It gives you the energy though, and so we play this hybrid role and that’s that’s been amazing for us in terms of building the category and really growing this brand across different markets. And we’re in a place where you know we actually are #1 or #2 market share in every market that we’re in, which is awesome, but we have huge ambitions to grow globally. And so you know, F1 offers an awesome opportunity for the brand to really leverage. You know this partnership, the awareness, it can help build for the brand. The global expansion opportunities and really help us build the brand. So we’re doing some awesome, awesome work already.”
“Sting is definitely a younger brand, and there’s a lot of commonalities from an audience standpoint that we found really interesting in terms of the partnership. So you know, Sting is all about definitely a younger cohort, a younger generation we call social strivers, and they’re people who, you know, want to maximize the best out of every moment. So they use Sting and we love to play that role in their life where they can almost take a mundane moment and make it the best out of it. And that actually is is super similar to F1 to be honest, right? If you think about F1, it’s all about these electrifying, unmissable moments. That’s what you tune in for, and that’s where a lot of the drama and the excitement.”
Can you explain exactly what the partnership between Pepsico and F1 entails?
Adam Warner: “So it will be led by three of our powerhouse brands, but you know, at the front of the pack, the front of the grid will be Sting. One of the fastest-growing brands in our portfolio and one of the fastest-growing energy drinks.So this can be a platform to enable us to take Sting into many new geographies around the world. As Vandita touched on everywhere it exists, it’s flourishing, and F1 can only help us to stay in that momentum on the business.”
“So we’re going to play across the energy, hydration, and sports. Gatorade and then Doritos will be the lead brand on the foods snack side of things. And specifically, on Gatorade, there’s some quite exciting rights we’ve got within the deal, we’re going to be the lead partner of the F1 Sprint. This is, you know, a key part of F1’s growth. It’s going to continue to be a key part of F1’s growth in the coming years and I think you know it’s very natural for Gatorade to be in a lead partner of that, particularly given Sprint’s got a big focus for Formula One in the US, so I think there’s a very natural fit there.”
“And then I think the final one to mention is the F1 Academy. You know this is a part of F1 that’s got great momentum. You know, it’s getting quite, you know, rightly a lot of attention right now. And again, that’s going to be a part of the F1 ecosystem, which we partner with on.”
“We’re also going to have exclusive porridge and distribution of our beverages and our bag snacks across most of the races. You know get the our products in the hands of. These huge audiences that go to the races, right? I mean some of the big races, you’ve got half a million of people across the race weekend, so you know that’s a, you know, a big benefit for us. And we know we’re excited to be activating in these fan zones with such huge audiences and engaged audiences. You know, we’ve got a big, you know, exciting agenda in terms of how we take some of our snacks propositions.”
How do you plan to integrate Sting Energy into F1 races?
Vandita Pandey: “Bringing to life in the next few days is this idea around sound. I’d say it’s interesting if you ask anyone like whether a huge F1 fan or not, an F1 fan at all. The first thing that people think about when they think about F1 is the cars. The sound of the engine and even kids, right? I have a three-year-old, or I have young kids, like they think of a room like the cars that go super fast, in the sound that it creates. And that’s what we call system one thinking , it’s the first thing you think about when you think about that.
“If you think about the race, and you know again we’re a very irreverent, playful, very clever brand, and we decided to let’s tap into that system, one thinking, and some of the most iconic elements of the sport, which is the sound. And so we are in the process of teaming up with. A big. World-renowned DJ Armin Van Buren is working through, actually discovering this unmistakable sound of Sting that you find within the roar of every single F1 car. So it’s going down the motorway in some of those stretches, I tell you now, George, you’re gonna hear it over and over again.”
(This interview was edited for length and clarity.)