Red Bull's first event of the year saw its 2026 challenger revealed in Detroit as the outfit celebrated its partnership with Ford. While the focus was on the Blue Oval, it was a conspicuously Apple-flavoured production, with "Shot on iPhone" branding and other products appearing throughout the stream.
With both Max Verstappen and new team-mate Isack Hadjar joining the Milton Keynes outfit at Michigan Central Station, the afternoon officially began the Red Bull Powertrains era, with its new power unit, the DM01, being unveiled to viewers. But to the surprise of some, the show also leant into Apple hardware.
The technology company secured broadcasting rights for the United States starting this year, so with the event celebrating the team's new relationship with the American marque, it also chose this time to celebrate Formula 1's new partnership with its American broadcaster.
This meant the stream was filmed entirely on the Apple iPhone, and later in the day, Apple became a large part of its power unit reveal. Callum Nicholas, Red Bull engineer-turned-ambassador, used an Apple Vision Pro headset to virtually reveal the new powertrain named after the late Dietrich Mateschitz. With the lack of any 'sponsored' label, it hints that similar technology could be used in other car and livery reveals, too.
Apple is obviously positioning itself as a major technology player for the championship, with the company not only taking over broadcasting rights, but also offering technology and products to assist in all facets of its media output.
In a similar vein, Apple also assisted in the production of the successful F1 movie, with the company assisting in the development of camera technology to better capture angles from the cars themselves.
“We’ve had, over the course of making the movie, from the teams, the drivers, the fans, this cutting-edge technology, the innovation, everything about it, we think is a perfect marriage of Apple TV and Formula 1 being the exclusive provider," Apple’s senior vice president of services Eddy Cue teased in October of last year.
"We are very excited about the plans that we have to elevate this. We've got a lot of great ideas that we're going to work on together, and I think we're going to make this an amazing, transformative year for Formula 1 and Liberty in 2026 so thank you Stefano [Domenicali] and thank you Ian [Holmes] and the rest of the F1 team."
The broadcaster added that there are "AR and VR opportunities" that it would like to explore, as well as 360-degree offerings.
It's safe to say that Apple is going to embed itself as deeply as it can this year.
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