- Starburst, the enterprise data and AI platform, has signed 2025 Formula 1 World Champion Lando Norris to a two-year brand ambassador deal.
- The partnership launches Starburst's new "Ask. Know. Go." campaign, tying F1-level decision-making to enterprise data intelligence.
- This is Starburst's first celebrity ambassador deal, and Norris's first partnership in the enterprise tech/data space.
Lando Norris has a new partner off the track, and this one deals in data, not downforce. Starburst, the enterprise intelligence platform for governed data and AI, named the 2025 Formula 1 World Champion as its brand ambassador, launching a two-year partnership.
This Starburst is the Boston-based enterprise software company built on the Trino query engine, not the fruit candy brand of the same name.
Founded in 2017, Starburst helps large companies access and govern data spread across different systems without physically moving it.
The deal kicks off “Ask. Know. Go.,” a campaign built around how Norris operates behind the wheel: gather every signal, build a clear picture, then act with confidence.
Norris said the same preparation that drives his on-track decisions is what drew him to the partnership, calling reliable access to information the thing that gives him “confidence to act.”
The timing lines up with Norris’s biggest period yet. He claimed his first Drivers’ Championship at the 2025 season finale in Abu Dhabi, months after helping McLaren capture its first Constructors’ title in over two decades.
Off the track, this is new territory. Norris’s endorsement list already includes Monster Energy, Ralph Lauren Fragrances’ Polo Red, TUMI, Bell Helmets, and Google Pixel, but Starburst marks his first tie-up with an enterprise software brand.
For Starburst, it’s a first as well: the company hasn’t worked with a celebrity ambassador before, a notable step into consumer-facing marketing for a business that typically speaks to enterprise IT buyers.
Norris also joins a growing list of F1 drivers fronting brand campaigns this season. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton starred in Genesys’ AI-driven customer experience push, while Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll fronted PUMA’s “Homecoming” capsule with Aston Martin ahead of the British Grand Prix.
Norris’s move extends that pattern from fashion and automotive into enterprise software, betting that F1 star power can help sell a much harder product.
Takeaways
Starburst is borrowing F1’s language of speed and precision to sell something far less glamorous: enterprise data governance. It’s a similar playbook to Genesys’ recent Leclerc-Hamilton campaign, suggesting B2B tech brands increasingly see F1 drivers as shorthand for “fast, precise decisions under pressure.”
For Norris, fresh off his first title, it’s a chance to diversify beyond the usual driver categories of luggage, fragrance, and energy drinks into a sector with far deeper marketing budgets.
Can F1 star power actually influence enterprise software buyers, or is this mainly a brand-awareness play? Does this signal more B2B tech companies turning to athlete ambassadors going forward?
