Ep. 46 Revolut on the Grid: the making of an F1 partnership

Hello and welcome to the Revolut Insider Podcast, where we explore all things Revolut one episode at a time. I'm your host, Alex Carril, and joining me today is Nacho Gonzalez, head of our Formula One activation here at Revolut. I think when you look, even from the outside, on how Audi shows up, what their brand values are, you really feel this closeness to Revolut and how we want to show up as well as a premium brand, but at the same time relatable. This challenger mindset of trying all the time to keep on growing, to be better, to do better.

Hi, Nacho. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me. Nacho, you lead one of Revolut's most globally visible partnerships.

And I want to talk to you about what goes into building a collaborative relationship at this scale, you know, with the Audi Revolut F1 team and, you know, how this partnership will show up for customers in real life. Sure. It's a massive project, exciting project, and happy to be talking to you about it today. I mean, F1, it's huge.

It spans five continents. There are races that go almost all year round. And the race weekends attract massive live audiences, not to mention a huge goal of following online. I mean, what goes into building a partnership of this size?

There's a lot of work behind it. There's a lot of planning. There's also a lot of ambition, a lot of excitement. It's obviously one of the biggest and most watched and followed sport right now.

And we're super excited to be joining the grid as of 2026. And you were there in Berlin when they unveiled delivery. I mean, how was it to see this idea actually come to life? Yes, I was.

It was quite an emotional moment, a unique experience, obviously, having worked so much into the planning of this project. And it was also good to reflect not only on the work that we've put behind launching a F1 partnership, but also the work that we've put in the last few years when it comes to sponsorships. So massive emotional moment for the team. It was really great to see things coming to life finally and really excited about the season ahead of us.

What a wonderful experience, I'm sure. You've been part of the partnerships team for quite some time. I mean, you started in 2022. How have you seen this strategy of who we partner with evolve over these last few years?

Well, it has been a journey, that I can tell. We started early in the 2022, 2023 with the first local event here in Spain, La Velada, which was a pretty big success on Twitch. And we've been jumping from sponsorship to sponsorship, growing and building our playbook. It's been quite a steep learning curve, and I think we're right in the midst of it.

I mean, if you look at the F1 deal and the F1 sponsorship now, it's just a testament of all the work and all of the progress that we've made in the last couple of years, and it's really an exciting time for us. Yeah, I mean, it's huge. So congratulations for you and the team. What does your day-to-day look like?

Well, I would say it's a fun job. I got the fun job, that I can tell. Working at Partnerships is really obviously super challenging, and there's a lot of expectations and a lot of things that go wrong. But at the same time, it's really rewarding.

Seeing all of your work come into life in a live event, in an NBA game or a F1 race, it's obviously a really emotional moment. A lot of emotions go through you when you are six months, one year into planning and then see real things happening on the grid, on the court, on a football pitch. So it's a really, really tough, but at the same time rewarding job. It's a really good opportunity, obviously, to work on marketing at this level.

Yeah, I mean, and the reaction that people have had over seeing delivery, over participations that we have at Man City or with NBA, I mean, it's really impactful. Like you're actually connecting with people. Exactly. At the end of the day, when you look at sponsorships and the brand activities that we do, we're trying to connect at the human level.

We're not just a technological product. We're not just an app. We're not just a bank. We are what our customers want us to be, and we want to really accompany them and be next to them in their interest.

And it's a big responsibility, you know, selecting the right partners. How are we going to collaborate with these partners? So how did you know that we were ready to take on a partnership like a Formula One team? It goes back to the playbook that we've been able to build in the last few years with our partnerships, from the very first event to now bigger partnerships.

It all comes down to both the marketing side of things, how we're able to activate the partnership and how we able to build a go campaign around it Because there is a point to why we partner I mean like we want to connect with people but there a marketing aspect of this right Exactly At the end of the day partnerships are one of the biggest opportunities for us to be on the center stage, to be reaching our customers where they are, and obviously activating the partnership at different levels within the marketing funnel, right?

And I like what you said, that you're meeting customers where they are, right? So it's not about, like, searching for new customers, yes, but where do we want to see where our customers are? Yeah, because, I mean, partnerships at the end of the day give us the ability to not only look at the marketing side of things but also connect with the customers at the human level to understand where they are, how can we be next to them and provide them experiences, access to these partners and make sure we connect with them in a whole different level than where they are just scrolling through the app.

Exactly, so connecting with them in real life and not just in the digital space, right? I want to ask you, you know, after these years of developing these bigger and bigger partnerships, how do you feel like you've grown either personally or professionally? Well, it's a good question. I think if I look back at myself in 2022, 2023, when I was running the first few small events, and at that time, those events or those partnerships felt like the whole world.

They felt like extremely big, extremely complex because we were running everything for the first time. Now, if you fast forward, we've learned so much and we've been able to build a team around it that has been able to execute at scale. And that is a massive learning curve that not only for me personally, but also for the team has been obviously a great and amazing opportunity to build on this partnerships career. Because I know that this is a fairly new role of like leading Formula One activation because it didn't exist before.

So you kind of stepped into this role because of the need of how big this partnership is. It's huge. I mean, congratulations. Thank you.

I mean, it is challenging. It is really rewarding at the same time. Obviously, when we looked at how we wanted to activate the partnership with Audi, we understood that fairly quickly that we needed to build an entire team just around it because it's such a huge partnership. There's so many things.

As you mentioned in the beginning, there's 24 races across the calendar. There's five continents involved. And we want to activate from all of the marketing layers, but also on the product side of things, on the business side of things. We want to do hospitality.

There's a lot that goes into the mix to really build a comprehensive go-to-market plan. I guess this brings me to my next point of, you know, when you are looking at this partnership and developing it, I mean, we have to decide which team, right? So why Audi? We obviously were already interested in the F1 being such a big sport.

and when we started discussing with Audi, there were three main areas that we identify as kind of like super clear for us as a good partner to partner with. First, brand. I think when you look, even from the outside, on how Audi shows up, what their brand values are, you really feel this closeness to Revolut and how we want to show up as well as a premium brand, but at the same time relatable. The second layer is this relentless ambition to keep on winning and keep on growing.

And this is something that you see in Audi through the hundred years of motorsport history from Le Mans to the Rally Dakar to DTM and now F1. This challenger mindset. Exactly. This challenger mindset of trying all the time to keep on growing, to be better, to do better, to do bigger.

And I think that's also something that we're really related to quite quickly. This never settles spirit in a way. Exactly. And you can see that on both sides from Revolut in terms of trying to build the next product and try to build better experience for our customers.

And you see that on the Audi side of things as well. And then the final one I would say is being able to join them and building this F1 team from the ground up. That is an amazing opportunity for us to join them in the way towards the grid. help them achieve their goals, help them on the track, off the track with their performance.

And that is obviously something that we also as builders ourselves really value. Building not only this connection with their team, but how do we merge these experiences to also connect with the customer? I mean, because that's the ultimate goal, right? Correct.

There's the customer aspect where it's all about how we show up, how we drive trust to our brand, how we drive awareness and consideration in different markets, especially in expansion markets where we might not be as known yet, but with Formula One being such a massive followed sport we going to get in front of our customers And then second is how we build also connection with the team How do we make sure that we empower the team through our banking services for them to do finances to do their banking with us and through Revolut Business to make sure we cover them from a product standpoint already.

Everything that we can help with our products, with our technology, we will be behind the team to make sure that they can focus on the performance on track. when you can build a partnership that's mutually beneficial, it really stands out. And I feel like it just helps solidify this collaboration. Which is also one of the things that we consider when we were entering into this partnership.

It's not just obviously the F1 team, which is obviously the centerpiece, but also the partners that we are on it with from the Audi brand, from Adidas, from BP, and a long list of really good partners that we want to collaborate with, that we want to support, that we want to work together on projects to make sure that the team performs on the grid and that we can provide them with everything that they need. Yeah. And now let's take it from a customer's point of view, right? I mean, because that's the whole point of doing all of this for customers so they have a great watching experience, so they can be involved in activations or experiences.

So what will this look like for customers? I mean, what's the value for them, for us to have this partnership? As we discussed, right? I mean, F1 is obviously such a follow sport.

There's 800 million fans already as of last year. Wow. Not only streaming of the races, but also on social media with Gen Z and kind of like a new audience joining the sport in the recent years. Now, what we want to provide is basically more access to it.

It is still one of these sports where it's really hard to get in. It's really hard to go to a race. It's really hard to get access to the drivers or experiences of the grid. and we want to give our customers access through our app, through our product, to a bit of that, a bit of the sport, a bit of the essence of the sport and things that they could not have access otherwise.

We see tons of partners with Formula One. What makes ours different? We want to get our customers access to a lot of things around the F1 team, from early access to tickets, to branded merchandise, and we also launch our special edition cart, which is a team-led cart, obviously really tapping into the design principles and the design that we've already talked about. And you will see a lot more products coming up this season.

We really want to make sure that our customers have preferential access to everything around this F1 team and making sure that they have a better experience. Because we're seeing these immersive experiences at the races. Yes. Take Melbourne, for example.

Our first ever race weekend, and we were close to the fans. We activated on the ground with our Revolut Club activation, which is revolving around music, which is giving our customers access to a little bit of the behind the scenes, if you like. And that is something that you're going to see throughout the season. There's a lot more that is coming our way.

And it really is exciting to see how the customers already in Australia were already engaging with the brand and engaging with Audi Revolut F1. I was excited. seeing what was happening over there. It's really incredible.

We're talking about the reach that this has. I mean, it's massive. So to be able to share that, even from afar, is really exciting as well. I mean, at the end of the day, we want to give all of our customers access to it, whether they're sitting in the US, in the UK, or in Australia.

Obviously, where you have a race weekend next to your house is obviously amazing. But we don't have race weekends in all of the countries where we are present, right? So we want to make sure that both customers on the ground can engage with us and the team, but also customers at home can really see what's happening, what's happening behind the scenes, what it is to run a F1 team and what are the great benefits we get for them. How was it being in Melbourne and seeing for the first time the Audi Revolut team car go?

I have to tell you, I mean, I saw it a little bit behind closed doors at the testing in Barcelona, but it's true that it's just an amazing moment. One of these realization moments where you see something real coming to life, so much preparation, so much planning and seeing our brand really standing out in delivery of a car is just an amazing, an amazing experience. we obviously know that there's an entire season ahead of us but we're super excited of what's to come we know that we need to learn a lot this season and that we gonna go from here from 0 to 1 as we always do but it was truly an amazing experience to see the livery of the car for the first time hitting the grid We knew that we were going to need to work a lot learn a lot iterate a lot And we're excited just about the journey that we have in front of us.

But we always knew that this is more a marathon than a sprint. A Formula One race. Formula One is really at the top of the sports game. But where do we go from here?

What's next for Revolut when it comes to partnerships? Well, there's still a lot to do. There's so many sports, great sports with great following that we're not exploring as of yet. Okay.

And that we want to bring to our customers. We want to give our customers access to them. We're actively scoping at-scale opportunities in different sports. We're obviously with football, with Coma and Man City now.

We're in basketball with the NBA, now with F1. There's still a lot of sports that we haven't touched yet. So, yeah, I mean, tennis, for example. And yeah, there's a lot of great sports out there that we can partner with.

And there's a lot of different type of collaborations and partnerships that we can build on top of that. So the road is long ahead of us. And yeah, we're really excited to keep on exploring those partnerships in the future. But definitely stay in sports.

We want to have a presence here in this category. Totally. I mean, sports is obviously one of the biggest stages that we can really tap ourselves into to, you know, get to our customers and give them access to all of these great brands and great sport brands. We do also music festivals.

We have a few music festivals like Primera Sound, like Siget. But those activations are different in nature. Those activations are more about ticketing. It's more about the experience on site within the festival.

It's obviously one of festivals rather than a long season in different sports. And the scale that we can get from sports partners is something quite unique and something that we're actively looking for. I think this activation goes beyond also just reaching customers, but I think it has the opportunity to reach people that might want to work at Revolut as well. Because there is this connection between high performance, top talent, and Revolut seems like a place where they could do that.

Like they can build and work on projects that really are making an impact. I think it's this compounding effect, right? Where you start from really small projects, small reach, and then you get to F1, as we discussed. And this obviously attracts talent.

I mean, if you look at my experience in the last few years from really working on small projects, small partnerships to landing in the F1, it's something that it's really visible. It's something that, you know, people outside of Revolut can relate to and can see themselves playing a part. And that is what we want as well. Sport is obviously such a competitive space.

And this mindset of always trying to win, it's also something that we need to, you know, take it back internally as a company and keep on building on it. Definitely. Well, I'm excited to see what's next. I'm excited to see how you keep building on it from here and what happens in your career.

but I want to ask you before we close out today what advice would you have given to younger Nacho who is just starting out in their career? Well that's a tricky one I would say one of the things that really stands out when you're working in such partnerships especially with sports or life events is that decisions not always come at a point in time where you have all the details that you want so for me the longer you wait for these decisions or to make those decisions it's actually the higher the risk that you're going to face yourself.

So the balance between how much details do we need to make the right decision, it's a really good learning when we think about these type of partnerships and life events. Speaking of decision making, I have to ask you, who are you rooting for, Gabby or Nico? You put me quite on the spot right here. Nico is such a legend on the grid already, but I have to go with Gabby.

I think he obviously had a really challenging season as a rookie, but it's always like that. And I really want to see both winning with the Audi Revolut F1 team and doing great with us. And we're definitely rooting for them both and for you and the whole Audi Revolut F1 team. So thank you so much for being a part of it.

Thank you for leading this activation. And thanks for being here today to share a little bit about it. Sure. Thank you for having me.

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