Austin's off-track fan takeover: Aston Martin and Mercedes take United States Grand Prix week deep into the city

Race week reaches beyond the circuit

The 2026 United States Grand Prix week in Austin turned into as much an off-track event as a race meeting, with two of Formula 1's biggest teams staging extensive city-wide fan programmes in the days before and during the weekend. Aston Martin Aramco ran its I / AM AUSTIN initiative across seven days of community activities, while Mercedes-AMG brought its free downtown fan hub to the heart of the city for four days of race-week activations. ¹²

The scale of the off-track push sat alongside a healthy commercial picture. The Race reported a three-day attendance of 467,000 at the United States Grand Prix and described the packed grandstands and pre-race announcements as evidence that the event and Formula 1 are in the rudest health they have ever enjoyed in North America. ¹⁰

Aston Martin's week among Austin's communities

Aston Martin Aramco detailed its I / AM AUSTIN programme in a team feature published on 26 October, framing the week around the idea of joining Austin's communities rather than asking the city to fit the team's world. The activities began on Lady Bird Lake at The Rowing Dock, where I / AM members joined an evening of paddleboarding, kayaking and a soundbath led by ATX Yoga Girl and powered by CELSIUS through the I / AM ACTIVE programme. ¹³

On the Tuesday, Jessica Hawkins and Mathilda Paatz joined the No Girl Walks Alone community walk through downtown Austin, with complimentary matcha from local pop-up Mori Matcha. Wednesday brought the Pink Paddock Club's Champagne Cowgirls gathering at Rainey Street, featuring a VIP hour for 50 guests with a live podcast recording, music from Defected Records DJ Tiffy Vera and keyring-making classes from Craft & Yap. ¹

Austin's car culture also featured on Wednesday evening, when the team's Road to the Race community event at the Long Center brought together real-world cars and the people who love them, with Aston Martin's Dreadnought, designed exclusively for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, on show alongside the gathering, according to the team's race-week preview. ⁸

Thursday's padel evening at Padel Society paired Hawkins, Jenson Button, Jak Crawford and Pedro de la Rosa with members, local players and professionals, alongside the Aston Martin Aramco x Padeltek collection announced earlier in the week. On the Saturday, Crawford and Mari Boya visited the University of Texas student racing team Longhorn Racing, with a replica F1 car and garage on Bevo Boulevard ahead of the Longhorns' game against Ole Miss. The week closed on Sunday with a race-day mixer at Soho House Austin hosted by F1 reporter Jennie Gow. ¹

Aston Martin's chief marketing officer Rob Bloom said in the team's preview feature that the programme was built around how modern fandom extends beyond the track, noting that Aston Martin's female US fanbase has grown by 36 per cent in the last five years and that half of the team's female US fans are under 35. ⁸

Mercedes takes a free fan hub to Congress Avenue

Mercedes-AMG announced in September that its F1 fan hub would run from 22 to 25 October at 400 Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, free to all visitors. The activation, which debuted at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed, offered fans the chance to act as a pitstop mechanic on a real F1 car, drive cutting-edge F1 simulators, and explore the Mercedes-Benz MANUFAKTUR personalisation display featuring the all-new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé. ⁹²

The hub also included the Trackside with Meta AI pit wall experience, historic team memorabilia, a 2026 show car for photographs, daily giveaways, an official team store and Texan food vendors as part of an F1 tailgate experience. Mercedes confirmed the hub would also appear at the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November. ⁹²

In his race preview published on 21 October, team principal and CEO Toto Wolff described the weekend as a chance to respond after difficult races in Malaysia and Singapore, saying the team would run its latest update package on both cars, and highlighted the AMG and MANUFAKTUR takeover as the heart of the team's commercial activities across the city. ⁷

The race weekend itself

On track, the headline result of the United States Grand Prix was a win for Kimi Antonelli, with post-race reporting crediting a one-stop strategy as decisive in Austin. Mercedes' George Russell was classified eighth, a result that kept his championship coronation on hold, according to syndicated post-race analysis. ⁶¹¹

For Aston Martin, the weekend ended with Fernando Alonso 16th and Lance Stroll 15th, according to the Honda Racing result summary carried in aggregation, and the event generated post-race controversy when Alonso criticised the quality of drivers at the back of the grid following a first-corner clash with Alex Albon. Aston Martin also revealed that damage hindered Alonso's race in Austin, with specialist outlet reporting on 26 and 27 October detailing the extent of the damage. ⁵

Austin as Formula 1's commercial showcase

The Race's analysis described Austin week as a case study in Formula 1's now-unshakeable foundation in North America, cataloguing a wave of announcements around the event, including Cadillac's partnership with Houston-based energy company Fronteiras, Audi signing AI software company Elastic from 2027 and Mercedes announcing a fintech partnership with Stripe from 2027 onwards. ¹⁰

The Race also offered historical context: after the rain-hit 2015 event, falling attendance and reduced state funding left the race's future uncertain, prompting organisers to book Taylor Swift in 2016 as part of their response. The publication argued Austin deserved credit for keeping Formula 1's lights on in America through that difficult period. ¹⁰

Aston Martin, meanwhile, arrived in Texas with its own milestones in tow, having celebrated five years of its Cognizant partnership with a special United States Grand Prix livery and marked Technical Partner Honda reaching 500 Formula One races in the days before the event. ⁴⁵