Red Bull F1 and McDonald's deal announced but there's a catch

Max Verstappen is cropped smiling at a McDonalds meal in a restaurant — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Max Verstappen drive thru penalty? Red Bull announce new McDonald's deal but there's a catch

Red Bull and McDonalds have confirmed an eight-week deal

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Thursday 23 October 2025 20:56

High performance sports like F1 and McDonald's are not usually the best of relationships.

For instance, I am yet to see an athlete put their success down to that outrageously good Big Mac from the previous Friday night, all washed down by that chocolate milkshake.

It's an incredibly unlikely story (mainly because that milkshake machine seems to always be broken when I need it) but if a team like Red Bull see the benefits of slapping the golden arches on their car, who is to deny them.

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Red Bull of course have announced a new partnership with McDonald's, the fast food chain that reflects Red Bull's fast cars (even the easy jokes still need to be tapped in) as they head into the final five races of the Formula 1 season chasing down the drivers' championship courtesy of Max Verstappen.

It was ahead of this weekend's Mexican GP that the deal was confirmed, but the catch is that it doesn't come into play until the weekend of the grand prix in Brazil.

The McDonald's logo features on the Red Bull Halo (image from Red Bull)

How long is Red Bull's deal with McDonald's?

An eight-week partnership will commence including the McDonald's logo featuring on the halo (most likely) of Verstappen and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda's cars.

But that's not all! As well as Red Bull drinks featuring in Brazil chains, a Sao Paulo restaurant will also turn its drive thru into a 'Red Bull pitstop', which sounds a lot better than Verstappen getting a drive-thru penalty at Interlagos - now wouldn't that open some jokes up.

The madness doesn't stop there though, it looks like there will be an exclusive animated series that is going to come from this, and you can only imagine how that turns out... Actually I can't.

Maybe it's going to be Red Bull looking for the culprit behind who stole their team order of Quarter Pounder with Cheese meals (Royale with Cheese for those of you in France or fans of Tarantino classics), only to unmask the old McDonald's villain The Hamburglar to find out it was Christian Horner all along.

Now it's time to drop some conspiracy theories. What if this whole partnership is actually cover for the great Ronald McDonald himself being confirmed as Max Verstappen's team-mate next season? Not sure how that would go down with the young Red Bull drivers though. They certainly won't be lovin' it.

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