Santander has had a flagship global sponsorship deal with F1 for the past 15 years, with the brand saying the partnership gives it worldwide visibility. From 2025 onwards, it is doubling down on the association as it enters a multi-year arrangement with F1 to be its official banking partner. This piece examines the U.S. motorsport audience that Santander is hoping to engage through its increased visibility.

Fresh analysis from YouGov BrandIndex – which tracks brand perception on a daily basis – shows that among American motorsport fans (those who follow motorsports such as F1, MotoGP and more), Santander’s Value and Buzz metrics have seen significant improvement recently.

Among American motorsport fans, Santander’s Value score – which measures whether consumers consider a brand to represent good or poor value for money – have improved - increasing from a net score of 1 in January 2022 to 4 in July 2025. Its Buzz score follows a similar trajectory. Buzz measures whether consumers have heard something positive or negative about a brand and the bank’s net score has improved from 2 at the start of 2022 to 4 now. Any score above zero indicates more positive than negative feedback.

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Different tracks: How motorsport fans and Santander customers differ

Demographics

While the brand gains prominence with its F1 sponsorship, its current customer base doesn’t mirror the motorsport fandom entirely. For instance, YouGov Profiles data shows that motorsport fans (67%) skew more male than Santander’s customer base (60%).

There are also generational differences. For example, Gen Z makes up 12% of motorsport followers but 19% of Santander’s customers – and aside from the Silent Generation - is the smallest base for both groups. Baby Boomers and millennials make up a bulk of the base across motorsports fans and current Santander customers.

While over a third of motorsports fans (36%) belong to the lower income group (income less than 75% of the median), this is significantly higher than the 23% of Santander current customers in this group. By comparison, a similar proportion of the bank’s current customers (47%) and motorsports fans (43%) are middle income earners, (whose income is 75% to 200% of the median).

Banking attitudes 

As Santander deepens its F1 play, our data reveals how motorsport fans and Santander's customers think about banking.  Motorsports fans (88%) are more likely than the bank’s customers (79%) to agree with the statement that they “try to regularly check credit card and bank statements for suspicious transactions.”

Similarly, at a time when Santander is pushing hard on its digital-first ambitions through OpenBank, the bank’s digital banking platform, our data finds that motorsports fans (29%) are almost twice as likely as Santander's customers (16%) to be uncomfortable using online banking. They are also notably more open to ditching traditional banking altogether: 13% of motorsport followers say they’d be willing to give up their bank account and use cryptocurrency instead, compared to 7% of Santander’s customers.

Beyond functional concerns, there’s a shared undercurrent of distrust. Equal proportions in both groups (41%) believe that “banks try to trick us out of our money” while around half of each group believe that all banks are essentially the same (51% of motorsport fans and 48% of Santander’s customer base).

The majority of both motorsport fans (58%) and current Santander customers (53%) are the primary decision-makers for purchasing financial and investment services. These audiences are the ones steering the financial thinking in their household when it comes to questions of value, trust, or digital comfort. For any bank looking to make the most of the increased visibility a major sponsorship deal brings, understanding what builds trust may be just as critical as gaining visibility.

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Methodology: 

YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. The metrics considered are:

  • Value, based on the question ‘Which of the following airlines do you think represents good value for money/poor value for money?’ and delivered as a net score between -100 and +100.
  • Buzz, based on the question ‘Which of the following brands have you heard something positive/negative about (whether in the news, through advertising, or talking to friends and family)?’ and delivered as a net score between -100 and +100.

Scores are based on an average daily sample size of 1,450 US adults between January 1, 2022 and July 23, 2025.

YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data for the U.S. is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.