McLaren and Mastercard turn 2026 title deal into a ‘Team Priceless’ fan access revolution

In the glow of the pit lane lights, long after the last set of softs has been switched off and stacked, Formula 1’s power brokers are already racing into 2026. And in Woking, McLaren and Mastercard have decided that the next big performance upgrade won’t go on the car – it will go on the fans.

From next season, the reigning constructors’ champions will run as the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team, a title deal estimated at around US$100 million per year and stretching into the mid‑2030s, according to reporting from SportsPro and The Athletic. But the real innovation sits underneath the branding: a global ‘Team Priceless’ programme that aims to turn a traditional sponsorship into an experience platform.

Instead of just slapping a logo on the papaya, Mastercard and McLaren are building a roaming fan squad that will travel to five races – Melbourne, Miami, the UK, Mexico City and Abu Dhabi – through 2026. At each stop, four regional supporters will be selected and dropped straight into the heart of a race weekend.

Mastercard’s own release describes Team Priceless as an initiative “redefining fan access and transforming race-day energy into unforgettable experiences,” with members unlocking the newly dedicated ‘Priceless seat’ inside the McLaren garage, meeting Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and key engineers, and capturing behind‑the‑scenes content for the wider papaya community.

“We’ve long believed that experiences bring people closer to each other and to the things they care about most – Team Priceless brings that belief to life.”

— Raja Rajamannar, Senior Fellow, Mastercard, speaking in the company’s announcement

McLaren’s own framing is just as telling. The team has spent the past few seasons talking up a “fan‑first” philosophy, and Chief Marketing Officer Louise McEwen calls the initiative “hugely exciting” precisely because it pulls the curtain back on a modern F1 operation.

“This programme gives supporters around the world the chance to see what goes into a race weekend from behind the scenes and get closer to McLaren Racing than ever before.”

— Louise McEwen, CMO, McLaren Racing, in McLaren’s Team Priceless launch

In practical terms, Team Priceless is structured like a mini driver academy – for fans. Recruitment for the first squad, heading to the 2026 Miami Grand Prix, opens this December for eligible Mastercard cardholders across North America. According to McLaren and Mastercard, entrants will submit short videos showing off their papaya passion, with winners flown to the race on an all‑expenses‑paid trip that includes accommodation, curated local culture experiences and those coveted garage moments.

But there’s a catch – or an opportunity, depending on your perspective. Those selected aren’t just guests; they become part of the content machine. Sports Illustrated reports that each quartet of fans will be expected to chronicle their weekend, turning the “Priceless seat” and paddock walkabouts into social storytelling that beams McLaren’s world out to millions who will never set foot in a paddock club.

This is where the deal stops looking like classic F1 hospitality and starts to resemble a rolling creator collective in team colours. Mastercard, which has shifted the majority of its marketing budget into experiential activations, has been clear about the strategy. As CMO Raja Rajamannar told Marketing Brew earlier this year, “We are now predominantly an experiential marketing organization… Our approach is not just about flashing our brand, but bringing our brand to life through experiences that money cannot buy.”

There is also the simple business reality. BlackBook Motorsport and SportsPro both describe the naming‑rights agreement as the largest commercial deal in McLaren’s history, with an annual fee that outmuscles rival title partnerships like Ferrari–HP or Red Bull–Oracle. To justify that level of spend, Mastercard needs more than TV logo shots during DRS zones; it needs a loyalty engine that turns casual viewers into card‑carrying, content‑sharing superfans.

For McLaren, the timing is perfect. The team is surfing a competitive high, with Norris and Piastri fighting at the sharp end of the grid and fan surveys – cited by BlackBook – placing McLaren as the sport’s most popular outfit. Locking in a decade‑long naming partner at that peak gives Woking the sort of financial stability title‑winning operations are built on.

Yet there’s a cultural gamble here too. McLaren has spent the Zak Brown era rebuilding its own identity, the papaya orange and fan‑friendly tone becoming part of the grid’s emotional soundtrack. Introducing a powerful naming partner risks cluttering that signal. Commentators in the sponsorship space have already wondered whether 2026 will see a car that feels more like a rolling billboard than a racing icon.

That’s why the experiential emphasis matters. If Team Priceless delivers what’s being promised – real garage time, meaningful driver access, a sense of being temporarily folded into the team – then the naming deal avoids feeling like a cash‑grab. Instead, it becomes another form of performance: not shaving tenths off a qualifying lap, but closing the gap between grandstand and garage.

Picture it: the high‑pitched whine of wheel guns echoing off the concrete, the sweet‑acrid smell of hot brakes hanging in the air, and, tucked just behind the engineers’ rows of screens, a fan in papaya headphones watching telemetry scroll past from the ‘Priceless seat’. For once, when the lights go out, a handful of supporters won’t just be watching McLaren’s story unfold – they’ll be helping to tell it.