Doritos Races Into Formula 1 With High-Speed Snacking Ads

Doritos wants your couch to feel like pole position.

The snack brand has launched "The Crunch Prix," a global campaign built on its official partnership with Formula 1.

The work connects the crunch and flavor of Doritos to the speed and drama of the sport, aiming to close the gap between fans watching from home and the intensity of race day itself.

Notably, the campaign serves as a continuation of Doritos' "Taste the Thrill" platform.

This platform folds race day energy into everyday snacking, whether that's a bag on the couch or a meal from a Doritos Loaded truck trackside.

Kyle Gore, Doritos' VP of Global Marketing, sees the efforts as a way of matching the sport's emotional register.

"Formula 1 is built on excitement, anticipation and intensity, and at Doritos, our role is to help fans experience those same emotions in new and unexpected ways," Gore said.

He added that the brand is "always looking for ways to show up where fandom is happening."

"The Crunch Prix" was created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners and directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, with visual effects handled by Untold Studios.

Living Rooms as Racetracks

The film borrows straight from F1's own vocabulary, complete with lights out, overtakes, pit stops, gravel traps, and photo finishes.

Each is reimagined around the act of eating Doritos at home. 

Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft voices the spot, lending it his recognizable "lights out" call, while Fernando Tornello takes over for Spanish-language LATAM markets.

The campaign debuted ahead of the British Grand Prix and rolls out across social and out-of-home placements.

This includes a series of stills that reimagine ordinary furniture as race machinery, a beanbag barreling down a straightaway, and a floral couch pulling into the pits.

The physical centerpiece sits at Silverstone, where Doritos is opening the "Doritos Thrill Zone" inside the Fan Zone.

Fans can play a virtual racing game for prizes including a Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS hot lap and a signed racing jacket.

Additionally, they can catch a live interview with Croft and F1 creators MattP1Tommy.

Two Doritos Loaded trucks will serve a menu built around a recipe from Gordon Ramsay, the brand's newly announced global partner for the Loaded line, with more prize giveaways.

The partnership also extends to Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, giving the brand a presence tied to a team and not just an event calendar. 

Ultimately, the initiative pushes Doritos to new heights within the realm of racing, establishing its brand identity as a snack that lives inside the emotional peaks of a sport.

Snacking Sets the Pace

Doritos' Formula 1 push rests on knowing the overwhelming majority of fans will never set foot at a race.

Formula 1's global fanbase is estimated in the hundreds of millions, and streaming and broadcast viewership dwarfs in-person attendance at any single Grand Prix weekend.

That gap between watching and attending is where Doritos is planting its flag, treating the couch as the primary fan experience worth designing for.

It did this by transforming ordinary furniture into race cars to mirror the adrenaline fans already feel from home.

The Silverstone activation then gives the tiny slice of fans who do attend a physical extension of that same idea, closing the loop between screen and track.

• Design for the audience that isn't there. Most sports fans experience an event through a screen, so brands should build the at-home moment first.
• Borrow the sport's own language. Doritos gave "lights out" and "pit stop" a new meaning, making the ad legible to fans instantly.
• Let food do double duty as merchandise. Doritos Loaded's chef collaboration and the prize-linked experiences creative incentive for fans of both the brand and the sports franchise. 

Overall, Formula 1's growing fanbase gives snack brands a rare opening, and that's a sport whose biggest audience is already sitting on a couch.

Our Take: Can Doritos Own the Home-Viewing F1 Experience?

Most sports marketing still treats the couch as the consolation prize, the thing you settle for when you can't afford a ticket.

Doritos flips that and calls it "your race seat." 

More than a tagline, it's a small argument that watching from your beanbag is its own legitimate way to be a fan, not a lesser one.

That's a gutsier bet than it looks, because it means the brand isn't selling a trip to Silverstone as the real prize.

It wants you to know that a Tuesday night on your couch watching your favorite program already counts.

We think that's the smarter read on where sports fandom is actually headed.

More screens, fewer stadiums, and a snack brand is the one saying it out loud first.