Latest news with #carRacing
Fast Company
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
How Expensify landed primo placement in Brad Pitt's blockbuster movie ‘F1'
From its first trailer, it was crystal clear that Apple was serious about making its blockbuster ode to car racing as realistic as possible. It was shot in and around an actual Formula One season. Legendary driver Lewis Hamilton was a producer and consultant. And Brad Pitt's fictional F1 team had a large collection of very real brand partners and sponsors. One of if not the most visible is expense management software brand Expensify. It's on the car, it's on the helmet, it's emblazoned across Brad Pitt's chest. Damson Idris's character actually shoots an Expensify commercial in the film. Idris also showed up to the Met Gala in the racing suit. This is 1,000-horsepower product placement. On this episode of Brand New World, I talk to Expensify's chief financial officer Ryan Schaffer, and Hannes Ciatti, founder and head creative at ad agency Alto, who give me a look under the hood of how the brand got such a prominent role in what is shaping up to be Apple's first hit film. Schaffer says that the brand is almost omnipresent in the film by nature of its placement as a F1 sponsor, but that the level of exposure around the film was unexpected. Things like the Don Tolliver/Doja Cat music video, or the fact the Expensify logo pops up in every other brand sponsor's promo materials, have made it already worth the investment. 'We have 20 companies right now promoting our logo. Other companies much larger than ours are promoting our logo, not on purpose, but we can't help but be there by nature of this sponsorship. Heineken's running a spot we're in, and we've never spoken to them.' Industry debrief We recorded this episode in late June, as most of the advertising, marketing, and brand industry was fresh off the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. That's where brands, marketers, ad agencies, tech companies, platforms, entertainment, sports, or anyone who is part of the brand world ecosystem lands in the South of France to celebrate the previous year and make deals for the months ahead. To make sense of it all, or at least a good portion of it, I called up Tim Nudd, the creativity editor at Advertising Age, and a journalist who's been covering and commenting on this industry for longer than almost anyone. Inside scoops, gossip, or just good stories, Nudd and I talked about what impressed him most, surprised him, and what he's hearing we can expect from major brands heading into the second half of the year. Check it out here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Khaleej Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
The Indian connection to Brad Pitt's ‘F1: The Movie' that everyone's talking about
In his latest film, F1: The Movie, Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt introduced car racing at the highest level to a wider audience, and something else equally distinct. A style of Indian weaving that's now grabbing more attention: the Tangaliya. At a behind-the-scenes shoot , Pitt sported an indigo-coloured Tangaliya shirt, by the fashion label 11.11/ The organic cotton shirt was chosen by the costume designer Julian Day to lend authenticity to Pitt's character of Sonny Hayes, an F1 racer past his prime who leads a struggling team back to the podium. The Fight Club actor paired the shirt with denims and the look is absolutely droolworthy. Frankly, we can't have enough of it, either! View this post on Instagram A post shared by 11.11 / eleven eleven (@1111clothing) Julian Day, in an interview to the Indian media outlet News18, explained that the selection of the 11.11/eleven eleven piece was deliberate and driven by the narrative of the film. 'Its soft indigo tones helped create the right palette for him," Day was quoted as saying by News18. 'Indian brands are so hot at the moment. Their use of natural fabrics and dyes and how they are handcrafted play so well in this current environment." That cool quotient, however, comes with a lot of effort. The Tangaliya weave, native to Surendranagar, in the Saurashtra region of the west Indian state of Gujarat, is labour-intensive and is at least seven centuries old. It involves twisting threads of contrasting hues around the fabric's yarn that gives it a distinct look of raised dots. Garments made with it, including shirts, shawls and skirts, are sturdy and are traditionally used to depict a variety of motifs. The Indian government has granted the weave a geographical indicator, or GI tag, implying that products from originating from a particular region possess a superior quality. 11.11/eleven eleven piece is founded by Mia Morikawa, a graphic design graduate from Central Saint Martin's University of the Arts, London, and Shani Himanshu, Master's in Fashion Design from Domus Academy, Milan. F1: The Movie, led by a stellar cast comprising Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon and Damson Idris, roared to the top of the global box office over its release weekend, minting around $150 million (Dh550.9 million).
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
What a Bag of Chips Taught Me About Optima's Battery Tech at Pikes Peak
Car racing has long been hailed as the ultimate test bed for burgeoning automotive technologies, with everything from aerodynamics to paddle shifters making their way from high-tech racing machines to consumer cars. But with so much of that already done, it's hard to imagine what, exactly, is left to learn. To find out, Optima Batteries invited me to the 2025 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. There, a fleet of BBI Autosport Porsche race cars would be outfitted with the company's OrangeTop QH6 lithium battery, and I was determined to discover exactly how relevant the iconic 12.42-mile run up America's Mountain can be in modern battery development. Interestingly enough, it didn't take some complex concept or high-tech machine to teach me why Pikes Peak presents an enormous challenge to a vital component like a car battery. In fact, all it took was a silly bag of potato chips. But first things first: Why is racing relevant to a company like Optima Batteries? Tom Downie, vice president of communications at Clarios (which owns Optima Batteries), explained just that. Motorsport 'gives us a chance to push some of our products more than the average consumer might, and all of that [research and development] goes into our regular products.' This approach may include not only appealing to performance-oriented aftermarket customers who want to upgrade their stock equipment, but also monitoring how OEMs are developing certain elements of their machines through racing and pitching Optima products to them if their technology falls short. From a sales angle, that makes sense. But to understand what, exactly, can be learned at an event like the PPIHC—or, as Daryl Brockman, director of global sales, marketing, and product planning at Optima added—the King of the Hammers and the Baja 1000—you must look at this race's extremely unique environment. Sure, you want your race cars to be durable, but Brockman explained that the PPIHC raises a frankly fascinating challenge, one that I experienced myself with the aforementioned salty snack. I bought a bag of chips down in Colorado Springs, which sits at an altitude of just over 6,000 feet. It sat, unopened, in the front seat with me as I crossed the race's starting line at 9,390 feet, and made the slow ascent up Pikes Peak to the summit, which stands at 14,115 feet of elevation. A sealed container like that bag of chips will undergo a wild change: It swells and expands. That's because the air pressure inside the bag remains the same as it was when it was sealed closer to sea level, while the air pressure outside the bag decreases. The internal air wants to push outside of the bag, which causes some extreme surface tension. Scientists call this Boyle's Law. Just like the chip bag, batteries are also fully sealed containers, and the altitude change during the race is going to impact the battery the same way it impacts your chip bag: Namely, as you ascend higher up a mountain, the external air pressure is going to drop, but the internal air pressure in your battery will remain the same. Pressure changes can impact the structural integrity of a sealed lithium battery pack, which can cause your battery to leak or even explode, while decreases in cooling efficiency mean your battery can overheat. It should go without saying that all of these impacts are bad, but they become particularly concerning when those batteries are mated to purpose-built cars that are trying to race up a huge mountain in 10 minutes or less. 'Our batteries actually have a breather valve that allows the pressure inside the battery to equalize compared to the atmospheric air pressure,' Brockman told me. 'It's one of the small details that our batteries have that some of our other competitors may not have considered.' And it's a detail that can't be replicated through lab conditions—not really. Brockman pointed out that the OrangeTop QH6 spent a year and a half in the lab, during which time the Optima development crew worked out any initial kinks. The next step is actually crafting pre-production prototypes that Optima has distributed to race teams and other enthusiasts who will really put those batteries to the test. 'A lab test is a controlled environment, so the assumptions don't always match reality,' Brockman explained. 'You'll have assumptions on how much power it takes to start the vehicle, which can vary wildly from one vehicle to another; the amount of cranking time; the differences in how a vehicle starts when the engine's cold versus when it's hot. Sometimes you'll find things outside of your initial assumptions, and those are the things we learned along the way to make sure that we have a product that will always perform.' A breather valve is a fairly simple feature; under sea-level atmospheric conditions, this valve remains a sealed component of the battery. But as you climb further up a mountain and the pressure inside the battery builds, it compresses the valve and allows that air pressure to escape. When the air pressure inside and outside of the battery is equalized, the valve shuts. If my chip bag had a similar feature, it wouldn't look like it was bursting at the seams up at the summit of Pikes Peak. The valve may be small, but the OrangeTop QH6 is also outfitted with a load of sensors that monitor battery health, all of which can be transmitted to an app on your phone via Bluetooth. Without the breather valve, Optima could see exactly how sudden changes in elevation and atmospheric pressure compromised battery integrity and lifespan. Add in the breather valve, and the data showed a dramatically different story, though the Optima crew was reluctant to hand off any proprietary details. So, while the 2025 running of the PPIHC was the first time Optima had officially debuted its OrangeTop QH6 battery in a race car as a final product, it wasn't the first time a car had carried some version of that battery up a mountain; its adventure-focused product testers had been enthusiastically scaling summits for about a year before the company knew it had a battery that could withstand the pressures of competition. The difference is that now, Optima has completed the testing of its prototypes and feels confident enough to offer it to consumers. Got a tip? Email us at tips@
The Drive
30-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
What a Bag of Chips Taught Me About Optima's Battery Tech at Pikes Peak
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Car racing has long been hailed as the ultimate test bed for burgeoning automotive technologies, with everything from aerodynamics to paddle shifters making their way from high-tech racing machines to consumer cars. But with so much of that already done, it's hard to imagine what, exactly, is left to learn. To find out, Optima Batteries invited me to the 2025 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. There, a fleet of BBI Autosport Porsche race cars would be outfitted with the company's OrangeTop QH6 lithium battery, and I was determined to discover exactly how relevant the iconic 12.42-mile run up America's Mountain can be in modern battery development. Interestingly enough, it didn't take some complex concept or high-tech machine to teach me why Pikes Peak presents an enormous challenge to a vital component like a car battery. In fact, all it took was a silly bag of potato chips. Elizabeth Blackstock But first things first: Why is racing relevant to a company like Optima Batteries? Tom Downie, vice president of communications at Clarios (which owns Optima Batteries), explained just that. Motorsport 'gives us a chance to push some of our products more than the average consumer might, and all of that [research and development] goes into our regular products.' This approach may include not only appealing to performance-oriented aftermarket customers who want to upgrade their stock equipment, but also monitoring how OEMs are developing certain elements of their machines through racing and pitching Optima products to them if their technology falls short. Elizabeth Blackstock, Optima From a sales angle, that makes sense. But to understand what, exactly, can be learned at an event like the PPIHC—or, as Daryl Brockman, director of global sales, marketing, and product planning at Optima added—the King of the Hammers and the Baja 1000—you must look at this race's extremely unique environment. Sure, you want your race cars to be durable, but Brockman explained that the PPIHC raises a frankly fascinating challenge, one that I experienced myself with the aforementioned salty snack. I bought a bag of chips down in Colorado Springs, which sits at an altitude of just over 6,000 feet. It sat, unopened, in the front seat with me as I crossed the race's starting line at 9,390 feet, and made the slow ascent up Pikes Peak to the summit, which stands at 14,115 feet of elevation. A sealed container like that bag of chips will undergo a wild change: It swells and expands. That's because the air pressure inside the bag remains the same as it was when it was sealed closer to sea level, while the air pressure outside the bag decreases. The internal air wants to push outside of the bag, which causes some extreme surface tension. Scientists call this Boyle's Law. Optima Just like the chip bag, batteries are also fully sealed containers, and the altitude change during the race is going to impact the battery the same way it impacts your chip bag: Namely, as you ascend higher up a mountain, the external air pressure is going to drop, but the internal air pressure in your battery will remain the same. Pressure changes can impact the structural integrity of a sealed lithium battery pack, which can cause your battery to leak or even explode, while decreases in cooling efficiency mean your battery can overheat. It should go without saying that all of these impacts are bad, but they become particularly concerning when those batteries are mated to purpose-built cars that are trying to race up a huge mountain in 10 minutes or less. 'Our batteries actually have a breather valve that allows the pressure inside the battery to equalize compared to the atmospheric air pressure,' Brockman told me. 'It's one of the small details that our batteries have that some of our other competitors may not have considered.' Elizabeth Blackstock And it's a detail that can't be replicated through lab conditions—not really. Brockman pointed out that the OrangeTop QH6 spent a year and a half in the lab, during which time the Optima development crew worked out any initial kinks. The next step is actually crafting pre-production prototypes that Optima has distributed to race teams and other enthusiasts who will really put those batteries to the test. 'A lab test is a controlled environment, so the assumptions don't always match reality,' Brockman explained. 'You'll have assumptions on how much power it takes to start the vehicle, which can vary wildly from one vehicle to another; the amount of cranking time; the differences in how a vehicle starts when the engine's cold versus when it's hot. Sometimes you'll find things outside of your initial assumptions, and those are the things we learned along the way to make sure that we have a product that will always perform.' Elizabeth Blackstock, Optima A breather valve is a fairly simple feature; under sea-level atmospheric conditions, this valve remains a sealed component of the battery. But as you climb further up a mountain and the pressure inside the battery builds, it compresses the valve and allows that air pressure to escape. When the air pressure inside and outside of the battery is equalized, the valve shuts. If my chip bag had a similar feature, it wouldn't look like it was bursting at the seams up at the summit of Pikes Peak. The valve may be small, but the OrangeTop QH6 is also outfitted with a load of sensors that monitor battery health, all of which can be transmitted to an app on your phone via Bluetooth. Without the breather valve, Optima could see exactly how sudden changes in elevation and atmospheric pressure compromised battery integrity and lifespan. Add in the breather valve, and the data showed a dramatically different story, though the Optima crew was reluctant to hand off any proprietary details. So, while the 2025 running of the PPIHC was the first time Optima had officially debuted its OrangeTop QH6 battery in a race car as a final product, it wasn't the first time a car had carried some version of that battery up a mountain; its adventure-focused product testers had been enthusiastically scaling summits for about a year before the company knew it had a battery that could withstand the pressures of competition. The difference is that now, Optima has completed the testing of its prototypes and feels confident enough to offer it to consumers. Got a tip? Email us at tips@
The Drive
09-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
F1 Is So American Now It Even Has Its Own KFC Meal
The latest car news, reviews, and features. I remember people asking me about my favorite sport when I was a kid. I'd just say 'car racing,' never bothering to specify it was Formula 1 because no one in the U.S. knew what the hell that was back then. Nine out of 10 times, people would say, 'Oh, you like NASCAR!' That's not the case anymore, as F1 has officially broken into American culture. The Liberty Media-owned racing series is as recognizable across the country as the NFL, and I don't need any silly studies or viewership statistics to prove this. All I need to validate this theory is the KFC commercial embedded below, promoting the KFC Fill Up Box Box Box. Get it? Box box box. What's more American than KFC? Oh, what's that—McDonald's, you say? Well, rumor has it the Golden Arches is also coming out with an F1-themed Happy Meal. I know what you're thinking: the KFC commercial is promoting the F1 movie and not exactly the F1 series. Okay, sure, but that's pretty much the same thing, given that the film was intended to serve as a marketing tool for the series from day one. The Joseph Kosinski-directed movie features Brad Pitt and Damson Idris as headliners, and took two years to finish, while an '11th F1 team' traveled the world for 16 months filming real on-track scenes during actual racing weekends. Some reports peg the total cost of the movie at around $300 million. As someone who grew up with F1 since the late '80s and has witnessed its incredible growth in the U.S. thanks to Netflix's Drive to Survive, these advertisements are a finish line of sorts. F1 has made it into mainstream media, and now into the marketing-hungry fast food industry. It simply doesn't get more American than that. F1, you've arrived. Got a tip? Email us at tips@
