DRIVING DESIRE: Elemis is speeding ahead with its Formula 1 partnership, hosting a talk this week with its new brand ambassador, the driver Jessica Hawkins, before heading to the Qatar Airways British Grand Prix at Silverstone, which runs from Friday to Sunday.
As reported, the British skin care brand has signed a three-year deal with the Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team, becoming its first official skin care partner.
The Elemis name has been printed onto the Aston Martin Aramco sporting cars and, for fun, the brand has also created a silver F1 car chassis filled with more than 850 jars of its hero product Pro-Collagen Marine Cream.
Related Articles
The car has been on show at Harrods, and is currently at the Elemis store in Bicester Village. It will travel worldwide during the Grand Prix season.
In March, the brand made its debut at the Australian Grand Prix, where it offered treatments and products at the VIP hospitality suite. Elemis will take its Airstream to eight races this year, in places including Miami, Monaco, Shanghai, Las Vegas and Barcelona, offering “pit stop treatments” such as facials, and hand and arm massages.
Next year Elemis plans to go even bigger, offering treatments at every F1 track in the world, according to the brand’s cofounder and global president Noella Gabriel, who’s already a convert to motorsport.
“I walked that campus at Silverstone [in Northamptonshire, England] and have a newfound respect for the detail and precision” of motorsport, she said during the panel discussion, adding, “Jess, I salute you.”
During the panel at Wild by Tart in London, Hawkins, an Aston Martin Aramco Formula 1 Team driver ambassador, talked about the progress women have made in motorsport.
“When I started over 20 years ago, I could count the number of women on one hand,” said Hawkins, who also serves as head of the F1 Academy, which develops and showcases female drivers.
“Now there are so many more women who are drivers, mechanics, engineers and managers. But we still need to make it a more inclusive place. We have to keep pushing. We need to inspire a younger generation and they need to know that there are so many areas of motorsport, like stunt driving,” she added.
Women have embraced motorsport as fans. According to a study by Nielsen, 41 percent of F1 fans are women and it’s the fastest-growing fan base for women between the ages of 16 to 24.
The next decade will be critical for aspiring women drivers, according to one of the guests at the event, Kate Beavan, a board member and strategic adviser at More Than Equal, an organization aiming to make history by finding and developing a female Formula 1 world champion.
Beavan said More Than Equal already has an algorithm in place to spot the potential in female drivers, whose talent is often overshadowed by their male counterparts, especially in the early years of training and competition.
She said the aim is to build a pipeline of young women and support them through the grueling — and incredibly expensive — race to the top.