Carlyle CEO touts synergies fueling Oracle Red Bull F1 partnership
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Axios' Sara Fischer interviews Laurent Mekies, CEO and team principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, and Carlyle CEO Harvey Schwartz on June 5, 2026. Photo: Axios
MONACO — The Carlyle Group's entry into motorsport last year through its historic partnership with Oracle Red Bull Racing is paying off, the firm's CEO Harvey Schwartz told Axios on Friday ahead of the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix.
Why it matters: The partnership, announced in September, represents the first major deal struck between a Formula One team and a major global private markets firm.
- It is also Carlyle's first major global team sponsorship.
Zoom in: For Schwartz, the Oracle Red Bull Racing partnership is part of a strategic effort to reach a global, diverse audience with an organization that aligns with Carlyle's commitment to excellence.
- The deal, he said, gives the firm the opportunity to convene with partners around races worldwide. The personal connections reinforce trust, which he said is "fundamental" to Carlyle's business.
- "We operate a complicated business in a complicated world," he said. "We act as a fiduciary — the trust of people in this room — they allocate capital to us. If we perform, we give them the proper returns. And if we return the capital, they trust us."
The other side: For Laurent Mekies, CEO and team principal of the Oracle Red Bull Racing Formula One team, Carlyle is an example of a partner that can help create the environment and connections that allow talent to perform at their best.
- He noted both organizations live and die by results and rely heavily on data combined with human intelligence.
- "As soon as we engaged in conversations with Harvey and his team, we realized that we are actually in an incredibly similar business," he said. "We live and die with our performance."
- Schwartz agreed, noting, "Performance is the sole metric by which we have to judge ourselves."
The big picture: As F1 grows bigger and more popular globally, franchises are looking for partners that deliver more than just revenue, but also expertise, business knowledge, technology and data.
- Mekies said that as he and Schwartz's teams got to know each other, they repeatedly found similarities in how they build high-performing organizations, enabling mutual learning.
The bottom line: Both executives repeatedly emphasized that success comes from attracting and empowering exceptional people.
- "Even in a day and age where technology drives everything, this is a people business," Schwartz said. "It requires connection, and as soon as we connected with Laurent and the rest of the team, it was quite natural."
