ABX London Captured Motorsport at a Moment of Confidence, With Some Caution.
Autosport's ABX London event shared great insights about the evolution of motorsport.
Advertising & Partnerships | PR Pitches/Interviews | Premium Archive
I was kindly invited to attend the Autosport Business Exchange in London, a Motorsport Network event, with high-level executives discussing the current state of motorsport. It was a room of people on the front line of a very exciting time.
It took place in London’s King’s Cross, and was positioned as the morning business lead-in to the Autosport Awards at the Roundhouse later that day, and the staging mattered because it told you who the day was really for. This was not the paddock’s inner circle talking to itself, and it was not a fan event trying to sell romance; it was senior operators comparing notes on where leverage is moving before a new era begins.
The timing made sense for one reason that kept circling back in conversation, the 2026 Formula 1 regulations reset is not an incremental tweak; it is a full technical overhaul across power units and chassis, described by a few as the biggest regulatory change in its history, and it hung over the room like a shared reference point everyone understood, without acting over confident.
That context shaped the tone in a way that felt very honest. The mood was optimistic, even proud, because many of the people speaking are directly involved in shaping what comes next, yet that optimism was consistently tempered by caution. Speaker after speaker acknowledged that while the direction of travel feels right for motorsport and for the wider industrial and environmental goals attached to it, none of the outcomes are known until the cars are on track and pushed to their limits.
Follow me for more updates on LinkedIn | Instagram | X
When Red Bull Racing’s Team Principal, Laurent Mekies, spoke, that balance was especially clear. Now leading Red Bull through a period of transition, Mekies talked about the scale of the 2026 change with a mix of excitement and disbelief, at one point referring to it as “crazy” in a positive sense, not as a warning but as an acknowledgement of how far outside Formula 1’s normal rhythms this moment sits.
For fans, regulation changes usually register emotionally, as hope for a reset or fear of losing an advantage, but the language inside the room was far more institutional. This is a sport where performance is shaped as much by organisational continuity and operational discipline as it is by raw innovation, and a reset of this size tests entire systems, not just engineering departments.
That idea of systems rather than shortcuts came through strongly when Cadillac Team Principal, Graeme Lowdon, discussed Cadillac’s entry. New teams have been described as beneficiaries of focus because they can aim everything at 2026 while others juggle current seasons simultaneously, but Lowdon used staff hiring to underline how misleading that assumption can be. He told us that Cadillac advertised 595 positions, received 143,265 applications, and interviewed over 6,000 people, numbers he cited to illustrate how much invisible work sits behind the idea of a new badge joining the grid.
His point was not that Cadillac had less to do, but that the work is different. Building an F1 organisation from scratch in 2026 means assembling people, processes, and decision-making structures inside a sport that has become significantly more complex than when he last did this. Focusing on the future does not remove pressure; it simply relocates it, and mistakes made early tend to compound quickly once competition begins.
Media power also sat underneath some of the conversations, even when it was not the stated topic. Apple’s Global Head of Sports, Jim DeLorenzo, spoke about Apple’s approach to broadcasting Formula 1 with an emphasis on balance rather than disruption. He acknowledged the push to reach new audiences and experiment with format, but repeatedly stressed the importance of not taking away what existing fans value most.
That framing is important because platforms operate under different incentives than traditional broadcasters. When distribution, data, and ecosystem sit under one roof, the temptation is to redesign the experience around growth metrics rather than race-day habits. DeLorenzo’s focus on listening closely to audiences reflected an awareness that the hardest part of modernising coverage is not innovation, but restraint.
Investment logic was an interesting topic. Elis Jones, the Former Head of global sports advisory at Goldman Sachs, spoke optimistically about Formula 1 teams as an asset class, arguing that scarcity, global reach, and long-term growth potential still leave room for significant upside, particularly when compared with the valuation trajectories of NBA and NFL franchises. It is a persuasive argument in a room full of people aligned with rising values, but it also explains why regulation, governance, and media partnerships now carry so much weight, because once teams are viewed as financial assets, stability becomes a feature rather than a by-product.
From the brand perspective, Amy Mansell, Global Chief Partnerships Officer at skincare brand Elemis, offered an interesting counterpoint to stability. Elemis entered motorsport as a challenger, influenced by shifting demographics and a growing recognition that a substantial portion of Formula 1’s audience is female. Mansell described the partnership as having exceeded expectations across activations and engagement, and said that if they were to do anything differently, it would have been to enter motorsport earlier. What once felt like an unconventional category fit now looks obvious, which says as much about how the sport has evolved as it does about brand strategy.
The dominant public framing around Formula 1 right now is broadly accurate. The sport is growing, modernising, and attracting new sectors. What that can miss is how conditional that story is. The success of the next era depends on regulation landing as intended, platforms and brands adding without diluting, and new entrants integrating and contributing to the competitive balance, and none of those outcomes can be guaranteed in advance.
What ABX London ultimately revealed was a moment of collective realism. The power shift everyone talks about is not just about technology or sustainability, but about where decisions are now made and who gets to influence them. This next era cannot be fully predicted, only managed, and that acceptance may be the most important shift of all.
A huge thank you to Autosport for inviting me into a room of great insights and inspiring people.
Thanks for reading. If you hit the like button, you’ll be doing me a huge favour.
Advertising & Partnerships | PR Pitches/Interviews | Premium Archive