Three stripes and you’re in – how Mercedes and adidas finally landed F1 collaboration

Mercedes has been keen to work with adidas for some time and finally a 15-year flirtation has resulted in the German brands uniting ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Alongside the eye-catching fan apparel and the familiar three stripes adorning team gear, there is ongoing technical development that adidas hopes will enable Mercedes to improve its productivity.

Richard Sanders, Mercedes chief commercial officer, was a key figure in adidas coming on board and revealed the collaboration is aimed at taking the eight-time constructors’ champion back to the top.

“Financially, positioning-wise and brand-wise, all three of those things make this huge for us,” he said.

“We wanted to do things slightly differently and for the first time in F1 we’ve split the clothing functionally.

“Our management, we all sit wearing shirts and chinos, which is perfectly fine. But the mechanics used to wear almost the identical clothing and they’re changing tyres, working on the car, changing suspension. It just made no sense.”

The process of considering the individual requirements of team members has been a target for Mercedes for some time.

“The mechanics will wear apparel which is optimised for sporting performance and is better for them functionally,” explained Sanders.

“We’ve been working towards this new concept, not necessarily with adidas, for about three years. So I’m hoping it will be very difficult for Red Bull, McLaren or Ferrari to copy us. We have a competitive moat built around our concept, which is ideal.

“I’d love to say that the driving force behind it was pure performance. It was at least 60% of the concept, but cleaning up the kit and having it sportier was obviously quite important to adidas.

“The mechanics should be a lot more comfortable this year. It’s a layering concept as well, the clothing. So simple stuff, you’ll understand it.

“When it’s really, really hot and dry, they probably only have one layer or maybe two. But when it’s cold and wet, which will usually happen at Silverstone or Spa, they can use the base layers. They can use the layering system.”

Feedback from the team on the ground in Bahrain for pre-season testing and during the Australian Grand Prix will be reported back to adidas HQ and updates rolled out throughout the season, with driving pair George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli also set to benefit.

“In Miami, there’ll be a big update where you will see a different side to Mercedes hopefully coming through,” said Sanders.

“It would obviously be fine-tuned and developed over time to make it even more adapted and suited. There are some innovations on the driver side coming later in the year as well, that are linked to pure performance.

“So adidas has taken a look at the drivers, particularly trying to keep them cool. It’s a big topic. The FIA are looking to address it at hot races, but they will focus on the cockpit.

“But adidas has actually addressed it outside of the cockpit and as the drivers get into the cockpit, I don’t want to say too much, but they should have a slightly lower body temperature, which should help them, theoretically, in the race. So we’ll explore that concept and see how it works.”

For adidas, the partnership with Mercedes comes at a good time, having just lost its deal with the German Football Association to Nike.

Kitting out a F1 team for the first time presented its own challenges, but adidas tapped into its experience in the football market to hit the ground running.

“The way that adidas did that, it wouldn’t have worked for adidas just to bring in a new motorsport unit and try to effectively work in Formula 1,” explained Sanders.

“Its biggest and most sophisticated business divisions in sport are the football divisions so the way that we’ve been positioned internally at adidas is that we’ve been basically set aside as part of the football unit.

“We have access to exactly the same capability that Real Madrid or Bayern Munich or Manchester United would have and our sales already, it’s a nine-figure sum projected global sales in year one. And that would put us within adidas’ top three licensees.”