Miami, May 2025. Before the Grand Prix, the twenty Formula 1 drivers do the parade lap in ten full-size cars built from LEGO bricks, one per team, with the two team-mates sitting one behind the other: almost 400,000 pieces each. They were made by 26 designers, engineers and builders at the Kladno factory in the Czech Republic, in more than 22,000 hours of work in total. The wheels and the Pirelli tyres are real. The rest, apart from the chassis and the electric motor that make them move, is a toy.
The images of that parade went around the world. And this is where it is worth stopping, because creative sponsorships in motorsport are not the most extravagant ones, but the ones in which a brand does something that only it, in that context, could have done. LEGO brought its product onto the track, not its logo. We have written about the role of creativity in sponsorship in a dedicated article; here it is worth looking at five cases up close.
Ten Formula 1 cars made of bricks
The first is the Miami one itself, and the detail that matters is not the number of bricks. It is that, for one lap, the drivers climbed onto the sponsor’s product, and half of them drove it. The audience did not see a brand next to Formula 1: it saw Formula 1 turn, for a few minutes, into a box of building bricks. For a toy company that uses Formula 1 to speak to children and adults alike, motorsport was the stage, and LEGO was the show.
The award that measures the sponsor’s trade
Since 2015, Formula 1 has given the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award every year to the fastest team in the pit lane over the season: in the first two editions the winner was the team with the fastest pit stop in the most Grands Prix, while since 2017 points have been awarded race by race to the ten fastest pit stops, from 25 down to 1. The sponsor is the championship’s official logistics partner, in other words a company that sells speed and precision in deliveries. The first edition was won by Ferrari, with the fastest pit stop in seven Grands Prix.
In my view the idea is simple and hard to copy: DHL did not buy a space, it took a moment of the race that resembles its own work, the tyre change in just over two seconds, and gave it its name. Every time a team celebrates a pit stop, the message gets through without needing to be explained.
The beer that says don’t drink
When Heineken made its Formula 1 debut, at the Italian Grand Prix in September 2016, it had an obvious problem: a beer associated with cars. It turned that into a campaign. «When You Drive, Never Drink» came out that very weekend, with an advert in which Sir Jackie Stewart, three-time world champion and a safety campaigner for decades, goes back over his career turning down a Heineken every time, up to a present-day party where, at 77, he turns it down again: he is still driving. In 2018 the campaign was relaunched at the Canadian Grand Prix, with Nico Rosberg alongside Stewart and David Coulthard.
It is a sponsorship that starts from the brand’s weak point instead of hiding it. And that, in my view, is why it comes across as credible.
A car that changes style in real time
In November 2025, over the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend, Google used the Sphere, the city’s most famous globe of screens, to show the McLaren transformed by Gemini, in real time, into different styles: comic book, 8-bit video game, oil painting, technical drawing. A direct way of explaining to anyone walking along the Strip what an artificial intelligence model does: take an image everyone knows and change it before their eyes.
On 19 November, on the eve of the weekend, Google and McLaren had announced the renewal of their partnership, with Gemini at its heart. The activation and the deal told the same story. We wrote about how artificial intelligence companies use teams in our piece on AI in motorsport.
The championship that bears the sponsor’s name
Since January 2018, Formula E has carried ABB’s name: first as the ABB FIA Formula E Championship and then, since it became a world championship in 2020-21, as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. ABB, which works in electrification and automation, became title partner of the whole championship, the first FIA single-seater championship to have one, and renewed the agreement in July 2025. The choice has an almost textbook coherence: a company that sells technologies for electric power gives its name to the series in which only electric cars race.
The case suggests that creativity is not always a spectacular idea. Sometimes it is choosing the right property, before anyone else, and sticking with it for years.
What holds them together
Laid side by side, the five cases have little in common in form: a parade, an award, an advert, a screen, the name of a championship. What they share is the coherence between what the brand sells and what it does in motorsport. LEGO builds, DHL delivers fast, Heineken has to talk about responsibility, Google shows what its artificial intelligence can do, ABB electrifies. None of the five settled for an empty sticker, a logo without an idea to bring it to life.
There is also a second thread, less visible. These are initiatives that produce content the audience shares on its own and that sponsors can reuse for a long time: in July 2026 LEGO repeated the parade at Silverstone, with a car for each of the 22 drivers. Creativity, in motorsport, is also a way of extending the life of a sponsorship beyond race Sunday. We have collected more cases in our sponsorship activation examples, in Formula 1 as well as in MotoGP.
One question remains, and it applies to any brand thinking of entering the paddock: what can it do, at a race, that only it can?
Frequently asked questions about creative sponsorships in motorsport
What makes a motorsport sponsorship creative?
The coherence between what the brand sells and what it does in racing. What makes it creative, more than extravagance, is usually that the brand does something only it could have done in that context: LEGO brought brick-built cars onto the track, DHL gave its name to the award for the fastest pit stop.
What did LEGO do at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix?
It built ten full-size Formula 1 cars out of bricks, one per team, almost 400,000 pieces each, on which the twenty drivers, in pairs, did the parade lap before the race. They were made by 26 people at the Kladno factory in the Czech Republic, in more than 22,000 hours in total.
What is the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award?
It is the award that Formula 1 has given every year since 2015 to the fastest team in the pit lane over the season. It is sponsored by DHL, the championship’s official logistics partner. The first edition was won by Ferrari; since 2017 points have been awarded race by race to the ten fastest pit stops, from 25 down to 1.
What is Heineken's «When You Drive, Never Drink» campaign?
It is the campaign with which Heineken accompanied its Formula 1 debut, at the Italian Grand Prix in September 2016: an advert with Sir Jackie Stewart always turning down a beer because he has to drive. In 2018 it was relaunched at the Canadian Grand Prix with Nico Rosberg and David Coulthard.
Since when has ABB been Formula E's title partner?
Since January 2018: from then on the championship has carried ABB’s name, first as the ABB FIA Formula E Championship and, since 2020-21, when it became a world championship, as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. It was the first FIA single-seater championship with a title partner, and ABB renewed the agreement in July 2025.
How do you build a creative sponsorship?
By starting from the question of what the brand can do, in that championship, that nobody else could, and turning it into an activation the audience wants to share. Without activation, all that is left is a logo; with an idea that fits the product, the sponsorship keeps working after the race.
