from the Pinnacle of Motorsports
Recently, an F1 sponsor told me, sincerely:
“You and Dr. Aki were pioneers in shaping how human performance is viewed in F1 today.” I must say, Championship titles aside, this warms me more than my Finnish emotions can express. What began as ‘logos on cars’ (in my time, big tobacco logos) is for today’s F1 sponsors about shared values – brand, technology, sustainability.
But honestly – it can be so much more.
What I see today among the forerunners is a shift beyond branding towards human high performance. This delights me.
F1 is not just a sport. I may be biased, but I believe that F1 is a masterclass in leadership, culture, team building, and sustained high performance.
It must be. Every race, your career – and life – are on the line.
We humans need lessons in sustainable high performance. Pressures are mounting. In a world of AI, we must keep up. (See, even I have my own avatar!)
Formula 1 is synonymous with high performance. Now, it’s time we change how F1 sponsors harness their own human performance.
Let’s bring the game in-house.
Two-time F1 World Champion
Formula 1 Brand Ambassador
of Formula 1 Partnerships
My father, Dr. Aki Hintsa, began his journey in Formula 1 in 1997 as the McLaren team doctor. I joined F1 a decade later, organising our first training camps in Kuortane, Finland.
Neither of us imagined the lasting impact Dr. Aki's methods would have on human performance in the sport. From the beginning, Hintsa’s focus has been clear: help drivers and teams succeed. In recent years, we’ve seen a shift. It’s not just athletes asking how to do it – sponsors are, too. To understand why, we’ll take a look at:
…how F1 sponsorships have evolved over time
…how forward-thinking sponsors are bringing F1 lessons in-house
…human high-performance themes in the sport today
What makes me most proud about my father’s legacy is that he didn’t focus on performance. He focused on the person – performance followed.
With this report, I hope you’ll find some lessons from the sport for your organisation
But more importantly, dear leader, I hope you take away something for yourself.
CEO of Hintsa Performance
Entrepreneur in second generation
we explore two questions:
①
How do Formula 1 Sponsors
Bring High-Performance
Insights In-House?
We researched and spoke with forward-thinking F1 sponsors to understand what the sport has taught them.
We’ll surface examples for talent, teams, leadership, and culture.
②
What Performance Themes are
Trending Now at the Pinnacle
of Motorsport?
In the last two decades, Hintsa experts – Performance Coaches, performance psychologists, nutritionists, physios, track-side doctors, and the occasional fly-in surgeon – have supported drivers who have won 19 Driver’s World Championships.
We’ll share strategies shaping success in the sport today – straight from the experts.
In-House: 4 F1 Sponsor Highlights
Formula One isn’t just speed and spectacle – it’s a model for high performance under pressure. For many organisations, this resonates. What are the parallels between the track and the workplace?
We researched and spoke to F1 sponsors who use their partnership on four levels:
①
Talent
②
Teams
③
Leaders
④
Culture
Steve Wright of Right Formula has seen F1 sponsorships evolve over 30 years and how sponsors increasingly apply the learnings within their organisations.
"There’s a strong focus on technology innovation in Formula One which makes it an ideal stage to prove your products can withstand extreme conditions.
F1 is the pinnacle of technical innovation – but it’s also a pinnacle of health and wellbeing. While technical knowledge transfer is well developed, we’re only scratching the surface of how health and wellbeing learnings from Formula One can be applied in business."
Executive Director
Right Formula
Talent: Engaging top talent with the F1 edge
In today’s talent market, differentiation matters. F1 helps companies stand out.
Forward-thinking sponsors are using their partnerships not just as marketing assets, but for their employer brand. Formula 1 is part of the narrative: who we are, what we value, and how we perform under pressure. By aligning with the high-performance ethos of F1 teams, organisations are telling a compelling story – to customers, yes, but just as importantly, to current and future talent.
Whether through social storytelling, careers content, or F1 experiences, a partnership can signal ambition, innovation, and a culture that plays at the top of its game.
I love breaking rules, breaking the status quo… The world still isn’t where it should be in terms of supporting women… Just because things have been done a certain way forever, why do they have to be that way? Why can more women not be represented in sport?
CEO of Charlotte Tilbury
F1 Academy sponsor
A motorsport league for female talent
Teams: Shared narrative and experiences
For many sponsors, the real value of F1 lies inside teams.
Beyond brand, F1 is used to spark connection, pride, and engagement across global teams. On-site events, factory visits, and race experiences inspire and energise. Internal comms – like stories from the paddock – build a shared language of performance.
In a remote, globally fragmented world, there’s power in making employees feel part of something bigger. Race access becomes high-impact recognition: a reward for excellence, a moment of belonging, or a platform for learning as a team.
Done well, the F1 narrative can be a unifying thread to connect teams – one that doesn’t just say “thank you”, but “you’re part of something extraordinary”.
For Formula One fans, it’s a dream opportunity – and for others, the experience often becomes unexpectedly captivating. From human performance to business strategy, the more you see, the more fascinating it gets.
CEO of Bang & Olufsen
Formula 1 sponsor
Like in F1, our success relies on teams working together. This inspired our Perform as One programme, which promotes cross-functional collaboration and celebrates team wins. We actively seek out the projects making the greatest impact globally and recognise the teams behind them. We’re also building an internal ‘fanbase’ to ensure all 40,000+ associates feel connected to the partnership – not just those in the spotlight.
Director, Experiential Marketing, Ecolab
Formula 1 sponsor, 2025
Leadership: Skills to sustain performance under pressure
How do you lead a multi-disciplinary team to go for gold?
F1 is increasingly used as a model for leadership development and skill building. Rather than copying F1 methods (let’s be real, the boardroom shouldn’t look like the paddock), sponsors use F1 to introduce leaders to new perspectives on teamwork, pressurised decision-making, and role clarity. Sponsors mention factory visits, race-day immersion, and external speakers – including F1 professionals – for a first-hand look at how elite teams operate.
These experiences provide a real-life reference to prompt leadership reflection: What can we learn for our own behaviours, team dynamics, and sustaining performance under pressure?
It’s a powerful way to immerse them in F1’s performance culture, craftsmanship, and the mindset that drives excellence. These external benchmarks help us evolve our own culture and standards.
CEO of Bang & Olufsen
Formula 1 sponsor
CEO of Maaden
Formula 1 sponsor
Culture: Learning from the team behind the driver
F1 is not an individual sport with a star driver – it’s a team sport.
The F1 culture is a powerful model for balancing individual brilliance with team cohesion. A Formula 1 team wins through collective performance, where success depends on seamless collaboration under pressure, open feedback, and a shared commitment to excellence. It requires every role to align around one purpose: winning.
Across interviews, sponsors describe using F1 as a narrative tool to absorb cultural learnings. Concepts like “precision”, “collaboration”, and “high standards” are brought to life in F1 stories and analogies. How do pit crews shave milliseconds off a stop? How do you debrief when emotions run high? These examples spark dialogue on themes like ownership, discipline, and effective feedback.
Tag Heuer also brings emotions beyond technology. We don’t just talk about the technical achievements. We talk about the capacity to push your limits.
Formula 1 sponsor
Internally, we also use the partnership to talk about performance culture. Formula One provides powerful metaphors for excellence – how every detail matters, and how tiny missteps can be the difference between winning and losing.
CEO of Bang & Olufsen
Formula 1 sponsor
Lessons for Leaders
Formula 1 is the ultimate human performance lab – where talent, tech, and teamwork are pushed to the limit.
Businesses race differently, but the challenges echo F1: rapid change, global teams, sustaining performance, and the need to learn fast.
So how are F1 coaches and specialists pushing the limits of human performance today? We spotlight 5 themes – each with practical strategies for leaders seeking sustainable high performance.
Embrace Seasonality:
The F1 Sustainable
Performance Cycle
The Formula One 2025 season has 24 races in 21 countries over a 10-month season. Teams are constantly adapting to new time zones, climates, and tracks. It’s probably the most demanding competitive calendar in professional sports.
Many sports build toward one championship event.
The F1 challenge is different:
How to not just achieve high performance, but maintain it – every week, for 10 months?
It’s easy to hit peak performance once.
But maintain 110% intensity over 10 months? That’s not a path to winning – it’s a path to burnout.
Leading F1 teams have mastered the art of strategic periodization.
The "Sustainable Performance Cycle" alternates between periods of high intensity and recovery – for sustained success.
Every year, drivers and their performance team do annual planning. They meticulously structure the year to optimise for sustainable winning:
...Build their foundational strength
...Acquire and hone skills the driver needs
...Hit their key performance moments
...Deliberately incorporate de-load weeks between races
Periodise Your Year
From hunter-gathering to farming, humans have always worked in seasons. Yet, modern businesses rarely think in performance seasons. Rather, there’s “constant sprints". Slower seasons are seen as laziness, not strategic necessity.
Just as F1 teams recognize the natural rhythm of their season, businesses can benefit from identifying their own performance cycles (e.g.):
or Year-end Closing
or Development Sprints
Three Strategies for Leaders
Map your annual performance cycle
A switch-off to recovery requires a switch-on back to performance. After a slower period, how do you rally the team to go above and beyond? For example:
- When in the year are your
demands highest? - What are your team’s
key performance moments? - Which ‘busy seasons’ are predictable?
- Do you have unpredictable busy seasons? What triggers them?
- Are there naturally slower seasons?
Don’t fight these natural rhythms, design your work around them. E.g. plan innovation sprints during lower demand, or pause development projects during peaks. Pacing work prevents the exhaustion that builds when every week is critical.
Build in strategic recovery
Like the F1 summer shutdown, build in recovery after intense work cycles. This can be time off but doesn’t need to be. An F1 driver’s summer break includes:
- Structured reflection and renewal
- Specific recovery protocols
- New skill acquisition
- Ramp-up to racing
Similarly, you can design post-project recovery periods that include team reflection, skills building, and preparation for the next performance cycle.
Ramp-up to
your peak
A switch-off to recovery requires a switch-on back to performance. After a slower period, how do you rally the team to go above and beyond? For example:
- Set a clear, ambitious goal
- Agree on more in-office team days
- Have team members step up to lead sprints
- Decide when – and how – your sprint will end
After quality recovery, your top performers crave high performance – tackling big goals, together. Give them the equivalent of an F1 finishing line and let them speed towards it.
Jet Lag & Travel:
The scientific approach of the world’s most travelled sport
Formula 1 is the gold standard for high-performance travel. With a relentless race calendar in 21 countries, teams must perform at their peak – mentally and physically – while constantly battling jet lag and travel fatigue.
F1’s travel logistics
are staggering:
....Cross-continental relocation
of entire teams on back-to-back race weekends
....60-80 personnel and up to 50 tons
of equipment move with precision, per team
....Brutal calendar stretches
– like Azerbaijan-Singapore-USA in 5 weeks
....130,000+ km travel in a year
– three laps around the globe
....Performance margins are razor-thin,
even mild jetlag symptoms have an impact
What sets F1 apart is its scientific precision to jet lag. While most business travellers react to fatigue, F1 teams pre-empt it – using chronobiological strategies to stay ahead of circadian disruption.
Top teams deploy travel performance specialists to craft individual protocols for drivers and staff. Plans begin days before departure and run through the race weekend, combining timed light exposure, meals, exercise, mental strategies, recovery, and sleep schedules – all tailored to the exact time zone shift and race timing.
See a preview of our upcoming Masterclass on Jet Lag and Healthy Travel with Performance Coaches Dan and Tom – shared as early access to everyone who accesses this report.
Plan Your Travel for Performance
Your travel schedule may not rival Formula 1 – but the performance cost is real. Research shows cognitive function can drop up to 20% in the days after long-haul business flights.
Most executives just “push through”, unknowingly taxing their own productivity and decision-making. F1 teams take a different view: travel is a performance variable, not an inconvenience. They invest in proactive protocols – because clarity, speed, and sharp thinking don’t happen in a travel fatigued brain.
There’s also a lesson in logistics. Compressing travel to save time or costs often backfires. F1 teams build in strategic buffer days, knowing peak performance when you need it delivers far greater ROI than an extra office day jet-lagged.
Three Strategies for Leaders
Start adjusting before you fly
If you’re crossing 3+ time zones, begin adapting to the new time zone before departure – called a “phase-shifting protocol”.
- For westward travel (e.g., Europe → Americas): Delay sleep and wake time by 1–2 hours for 2–3 days before the trip
- For eastward travel (e.g., Europe → Asia): Advance your schedule by 30–60 minutes per day (this direction is harder for the body), 2-3 days ahead
- For teams: Create templates for your frequent destinations, including optimal flight times, pre-trip schedule shifts, post-arrival adaptation
Work with a travel performance specialist – and make this as routine as booking a ticket.
Manage light exposure like a pro
During race season, you might spot F1 crews at brightly lit airports: caps low, sunglasses on. Light is the body’s strongest “zeitgeber” (German for ‘time-giver’). F1 teams meticulously manage light exposure to speed up circadian adjustment.
Light optimisation protocols can get a little complex (e.g. US to Asia with a layover in Abu Dhabi has a unique light strategy for each leg), but the basics are:
- Eastward travel: Seek morning light, avoid evening light
- Westward travel: Get evening light, block early morning light
Sunglasses and eye masks aren’t accessories – they’re performance gear.
Match performance moments to circadian windows
Your brain doesn’t land when you do. F1 performance coaches map key performance moments to optimal circadian rhythm stages.
Do you know the optimal time for your keynote? Or how to adjust your rhythm using chronobiological principles? The rules of thumb:
- After westward travel, cognitive performance dips 4-6 hours after your usual wake time. Schedule complex tasks before or after this window
- After eastward travel, alertness often peaks late, making evenings good for prep work, and perhaps dinner a good time to pitch
Your performance routine doesn’t travel well across time zones. Knowing your circadian peak windows when you travel can be a game-changer.
Performance Psychology:
The mental edge to master pressure
Formula 1 demands mental strength like few other sports. What makes the psychological demands unique isn’t just the pressure – it’s the sheer number of high-stakes variables happening at once.
The cognitive demands of F1
are brutal:
....Split-second decisions at 300 km/h
requires super-human processing speed
....Reaction times around 0.2 seconds
vs. 0.3-0.5 in most people
....Sustained focus under physical strain
– up to 6 G-forces in immense cockpit heat
....Constant cognitive load
– 20 buttons on the wheel, real-time strategy calls, rapidly changing conditions
....And one wrong move? Broadcast globally,
with risks to life or career
Many sports require athletes to “stay in the zone”. F1 drivers need to switch mental states – fast
...Analytical thinking for car setup
...Creative collaboration with engineers
...Flow-state in qualifying
...Laser-focus in race starts
...Emotional control in tight race situations
This is cognitive agility: the skill to know what mental state each moment demands, and switching deliberately. Drivers train their cognitive agility with performance psychologists, just like physical skills.
Listen to Chris Gooder, F1 performance psychologist,
explain the pressure of a F1 driver in the video.
Performance Isn’t One State. It’s Strategic Switching of States.
Business professionals don’t face hour-long races, but they do face cognitive complexity, daily:
Just as F1 teams recognize the natural rhythm of their season, businesses can benefit from identifying their own performance cycles, e.g.:
emotionally with people
breakthrough creativity
off for quality recovery
zoom out for strategy
The "always-on" mindset is outdated. The F1 model of cognitive agility offers a more nuanced alternative.
There’s no single “optimal” performance mode.
Top professionals need “contextual performance”: switching mental states to fit the moment.
Performance psychologist Chris Gooder outlines one exercise on
“The Challenge Mindset” he does with every athlete:
Three Strategies for Leaders
Map your
mental modes
Define the cognitive demands of your work and the needed mental state, e.g.:
- For analytically precise work you may need narrow focus and structure
- For creative work you may need broader focus and associative thinking
Match these with mental triggers and transition rituals.
In F1 you might use simple routines to move from engineering briefings to qualifying, e.g. physical state changes (new locations), attentional reset practices (meditation, visualisation), or sensory shifts (music, lighting, hot/cold exposure).
Build pre-performance protocols
Top athletes follow meticulous mental preparation protocols before high-pressure moments. Drivers do this before races - you can do this before big moments at work: presentations, negotiations, or decision points.
- Attentional priming – focus on process, not outcome
- Arousal regulation – achieve optimal energy: not too flat, not too hyped
- Contingency visualization
– mentally rehearse challenges and your response
This approach produces more consistent – and nuanced – performance than simplistic “just do it” or "stay positive" strategies.
Do “pressure simulation” training
F1 teams simulate pressurised scenarios to build psychological resilience, like "disaster drills".
You can too.
- Can you design controlled stress scenarios to build your team’s performance under pressure?
Run time-boxed decision exercises, scenario planning with surprise elements, or 'what if' drills.
The key learning is this: Elite psychological skills aren’t raw talent – it’s training. Training that’s systematic and realistic, not theoretical.
Team Performance Psychology:
No driver wins alone
We tend to spotlight the driver. But Formula 1 may be one of the most intense team sports on the planet.
Team effort is crucial
for F1 success:
....Drivers race with someone in their ear at all times – real-time strategy, feedback, coaching
....Pit stops have dropped from 10-20+ seconds in early 2000s to 2.5 seconds thanks to technology and relentless micro-optimisation across 20+ crew members
....While the car is on track, 200+ team members at HQ run live race simulations to guide in-the-moment race strategy
①
Healthy 1-on-1
relationships
Drivers who secure a coveted F1 seat are driven, focused, race-ready. F1 lead engineers are talented, sharp, car-savvy. But they don’t always speak the same language. That’s where performance psychologists step in – to run relationship and communications audits, e.g.:
....What communication profiles are on the team?
How do these profiles mix?
....Where is over- or under-communication needed?
....How to facilitate trust and productive dialogue?
②
Team environment
Winning isn’t about a star driver or the best car.
It’s about shared systems, language, and culture: a shared performance narrative of winning together.
Dr. Robbie Anderson, F1 performance psychologist, recalls a lesson from a military Captain – how open shoelaces sparked a lesson on direct feedback
Feedback isn’t just about
“radical candour”
Imagine this:
A race ends badly. The driver is fuming. The engineers are frustrated. Feedback and learning are critical for future performance. How do you make it happen?
The F1 post-race debrief process is designed to move the team from an emotional and agitated “red mind” to an analytical and reflective “blue mind”. The focus: learning under pressure, without ego or blame.
Post Race Process
Three Strategies for Leaders
Be a master feedback seeker
We often focus on how to give good feedback. The best learners flip the script: they don’t wait for feedback, they seek it. Try:
- “Can you give me advice to do better next time?”
- “What’s one thing I can do to be more effective?”
- “What was good about my performance?”
And remember, you also need a good feedback filter: not all feedback is accurate or even relevant.
Upgrade your feedback language
F1 pros rarely even talk about “feedback”. They use entirely different language. Just consider these examples:
- “For us to work well, I need you to …”
- “What’s essential for my performance is …”
- “I need more of X. What about you?”
What’s your performance vocabulary?
“Layer” your feedback & debrief
Consider the F1 post-race debrief. Typically, organisations favour:
- Instant feedback – can be spot-on, but may be a “red” state of mind when reflection is low
- Structured feedback – thoughtful, longer-term perspective, but misses in-the-moment nuance
Consider layering in “hot debriefs” within minutes, ‘time zero’ for venting and reflecting, or structured check-ins a day or week later. Good feedback isn’t just about “what” but “how”: having the emotional awareness to find the right time, energy, and focus for a good conversation.
Brain Health: Maintain your cognitive edge – for life
Formula 1 is a relentless mental race. ‘Longevity’ is trending, but in F1, the focus is sharper: cognitive longevity.
F1 drivers face a mix of brain stressors:
....Relentless cognitive intensity in races and training
....Chronic stress and pressure
....Risk of head impact – G-forces, crash risk, sub-concussive impacts
....Disrupted sleep & recovery from travel, time zone shifts, and busy schedules
....Long careers – for the best, 15+ years at the edge of performance
How do I stay sharp through the season?
How do I protect my long-term cognitive edge?
Dr. Tommy Wood, F1 neuroscientist and associate professor at the University of Washington, busts a pervasive myth:
“In fact, research shows that up to 45% of dementia may be preventable with lifestyle”
SOURCE: Livingston et al., 2024, The Lancet
The 3s Model For
a Thriving Brain
Dr. Tommy Wood outlines a high-performance framework for cognitive health, built on 3 S’s.
SOURCE: E.g. 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis,
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
①
Stimulus
You can’t go to the gym in your 20's and be strong for life. Use it or lose it also applies to your brain.
Get educated
Throughout life: build skills, get high-quality training, change careers or industries.
Have a cognitively demanding job
Don’t just lead and delegate the heavy thinking to a team (or AI) – think.
Do things
“badly”
Sudoku or crosswords don’t cut it. Unless you’re at the edge of your skills, making mistakes, the brain atrophies. Think: learning an instrument, a new language, or a complex choreography.
②
Supply
If you want to build muscle, you need rich sources of protein. In the same way, your brain needs high-quality input.
Exercise
Build your cardiovascular health, endurance, and strength – think of it as revving your energy production machiner
Fuel up on nutrients
Build your cardiovascular health, endurance, and strength – think of it as revving your energy production machinerGive the machine the fuel it needs to fight neuroinflammation: omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin-B, protein, hydration…
③
Support
Athletes know that getting stronger doesn't happen in the gym - but in recovery and an optimal performance environment.
Sleep well
REM-sleep restores cognitive capacity, which happens in the last hours of sleep. If you sleep 5-6 hours, you may lose >50% of needed REM sleep.
Build in recovery
High cognitive demand requires high cognitive recovery. (Basically, whoever promotes a 7-day workweek is not prioritising your performance or future.)
Promote mental health
Stress cannot be avoided. But it can be mastered. Chronic stress can lead to mental health disorders, which can worsen long-term brain health.
Prevent head injury
Repeated sub-concussive impacts – e.g. in boxing, martial arts, football – are associated with neurodegeneration. In F1, this is mitigated with strict safety protocols and neck strength.
Minimise neurotoxins
The evidence is clear: minimising alcohol, smoking, and pollutants reduces long-term neurodegeneration risk.
Three Strategies for Leaders
Build "headroom" before learning
Traditional Learning & Development over-invests in skills, and under-invests in promoting neural plasticity to absorb those skills. It’s like training the driver without maintaining the car.
Dr. Tommy talks about “headroom”: the total cognitive capacity you have available, over and above your daily needs, a combination of:
- Brain reserve
- Cognitive resilience
- Cognitive reserve
Without headroom – or “brain buffer” – your people walk away from training exhausted, not improved. How can you layer in activities to build headroom? For most professionals the brain bottlenecks tend to be exercise, sleep, and cognitive recovery before and after intense learning cycles.
Preventative panels + expert interpretation
The science is advancing fast. A preventative brain health panel may include:
- Nutrient levels: vitamin Bs, homocysteine, magnesium, …
- Blood markers: lipids, cholesterol, bloodsugar…
- HRV for long-term trends
- Dementia risk screening like pTau 217 or ApoE4 genotype
- Cognitive performance tests
But data without expert counsel is treacherous. The above are risk indicators or multipliers, not a diagnosis. So if the tests cause you psychological damage, you’ve already lost what could be gained. Tommy’s #1 question is: “If a test shows higher risk, what will you do?”
Don’t aim for retirement – aim for sustained cognitive peak
“I’ve never heard an F1 driver dream of retirement. They’re focused on winning, for as long as possible”.
In business, many dream of financial freedom and early retirement. But here’s the hard truth:
- Retirement is the #2 most dangerous event for cognitive decline (after birth) High achievers sprint through careers, accumulating stress, destroying cognitive reserve - only to get to a life of leisure … and rapid decline.
- The new status symbol isn’t early exit. It’s being a Super-Ager.
Super-Agers perform sustainably over decades, stay cognitively active, and don’t wait for retirement to live their life. What’s your approach?
Winning happens by design, not accident. The same is true for how we lead, work, and sustain performance.
high performance?
Sources on F1 sponsors
Charlotte Tilbury, CEO of the first female-founded beauty brand in F1 on her rationale for entering the sport with female talent.
Press release March 2025
In the Financial Times, June 2025
Maaden revealed in Feb 2025 a campaign with Aston Martin Aramco titled ‘Unearth Your Greatness’, focused on the greatness that comes from the dedication to craft – both within Formula One and the mining industry.
Joint announcement, Feb 2025
Tag Heuer’s CEO about Tag Heuer’s return to F1 as the official time-keeping partner.
Tatler, March 2025
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