How Formula E got MrBeast and what happens next

Formula E has been motorsport's hidden gem; its concealed secret; its sparky enfant terrible for so long that status all started to feel quite normal.

Like a future pop megastar stuck in a backing band, it couldn’t find its true limelight. But then, just as some started to lose faith, one of the world’s most recognised social media stars sauntered into the Miami paddock on Wednesday and perhaps some of that congestion will now start to shift.

Let’s face it, if one of the world’s most followed influencers/creators shunting one of its cars doesn’t help Formula E make that breakthrough then perhaps, sadly, nothing will.

When the Cupra Kiro Porsche with MrBeast at the wheel rotated and gently nudged the wall while behind the safety car at Miami on Thursday morning, Formula E’s recently appointed chief marketing officer Ellie Norman must have gained an extra skip in her step and the Floridian sunshine must have looked much more vivid than it ever did.

This was a moment - one that when uploaded to MrBeast’s Instagram account and accrued 20 million views within 12  hours - that will probably pay for the whole of the Evo Sessions ‘influencer race’ concept on its own. And believe me the Miami event was a multi-million-euro investment close to some of the races Formula E has put on.

MrBeast’s run sat outside of the Evo Session and he was actually there on other business, namely to promote his range of snacks. But also, it has to be said, he was a genuine active and engaging presence in the Kiro team.

The Race can reveal that the presence of the hugely famous YouTuber and media personality - real name Jimmy Donaldson - was the culmination of a two-year odyssey.

Jon Wilde (pictured below) has been a familiar presence in Formula E for several years, first with DS Techeetah and now with the new-look Cupra Kiro team. He’s been a racing fan all his life but melded his commercial and marketing nous to his passion and thus became a key commercial lynchpin for Kiro.

By triggering MrBeast’s appearance, Wilde may have set in motion something that can finally make Formula E punch through to non-motorsport-aware fans. Could it even bring the masses as Drive to Survive did to Formula 1?

A few years back Wilde had a hunch - developed via his own kids - about MrBeast becoming part of the Formula E paddock. So he got in touch with the People's Republic of Beast and its affiliate motherships back in 2022.

“All I want to do in Formula E is to try and make it the biggest championship it can be,” Wilde told The Race in Miami last week.

“And I genuinely think that the only way we're going to do that is finding a new audience. Going after the existing motorsport market is never going to make us bigger than Formula 1. We have to go to a new audience and we have to engage a new audience, and that is going to be kids.”

That philosophy was crystallised by Wilde’s own children, who proved to be perfect case studies for an idea that swiftly percolated into action.

“I spend time looking at what my kids are into, looking at what they enjoy,” adds Wilde.

“And Mr.Beast was the one for them, and me. The whole process started two years ago and the first event that Mr.Beast’s team actually came to Monaco in season nine [2023].

“That was the result of probably three or four months of me trying to connect with them, eventually getting to the president of the company and just finding ways to engage with them, finding ways to get them interested in Formula E, educate them about Formula E, and we got to a point where they were interested enough to come and check it all out.”

MrBeast himself was not part of that visit but Wilde persevered and saw that his delegation “loved the championship”.

“They got everything that it stood for, but we were struggling to find what would work and the best way to bring Jimmy into the championship,” Wilde explains.

“We couldn't find the model that would make it viable for them, make it interesting for them.”

There was a period of relative inactivity but then Wilde, like most did,  gasped at the two month void in the 2025 schedule, and then learned of series chief Jeff Dodds’ dream of the Evo Sessions idea. All of a sudden the Operation Beast was back on. 

“With our change of ownership, now being under Forest Road Company, I had a new impetus and motivation to go to them and a new concept to bring them in,” says Wilde.

Jeremy Tarica, head of that Forest Road organisation that now owns Kiro, was also instrumental in bringing the final pieces of the  collaboration together.

Two years of work and two years of trying to find a concept that worked had finally paid off for Wilde. But it still needed the close co-operation of Dodds, Norman and Formula E as a collective, or as is de rigeur in Formula E parlance ‘the eco-system’.

The real firm pitch came in December when the Evo Sessions started to gain real momentum once operational and logistical hurdles (and teams’ initial misgivings) were quelled.

“Ultimately it was a group decision and I presented the opportunity once I had interest from the [Kiro] team, which was around late January,” recalls Wilde.

“Jeff [Dodds] did an amazing job of picking up the opportunity and he had also had some interaction with Jimmy and his team too.

“It really started moving properly around mid-February and then Formula E were able to move very quickly to actually get decisions made once we had a commitment that it was possible.

“You have to remember that guys like Jimmy have their schedules worked out months and months in advance, so it can be tough getting any availability. But we got there.”

They did indeed. Now the eyes on Formula E are considerable, in that very 2025 way of being because a 25-year-old social media entrepreneur simply graced the paddock with his presence.

What will it do for Formula E now though, what are the tangible benefits?

“We give Cupra Kiro the credit for pushing him our way with a specific ‘would you do this?’” Dodds told The Race on Thursday.

“Of course, we were never going to say no to that. Liberty Global, who love this kind of stuff, were fully supportive of it too.

“I think Jimmy was due to be here for a few hours on Wednesday and he stayed a day and a half, and it went from ‘I might just film some shorts’ to actually longer form stuff and lots of shorts, and then some cross collaborations with some of the existing influencers. Then it was going to drive the car.

“I've spent a chunk of time with him. So impressive. Super smart, and so into the detail of everything, and always looking for the opportunity. And of course, for us, it just puts our event on steroids.”

That massive sprinkling of fairy dust over the event meant, according to Dodds, that the influencer was feted by the influencers!

“Sergio [Aguero] has 80 million followers and when he [MrBeast] arrived, it was like ‘oh my God’. Because, of course, who's their dream influencer? It's not Ayrton Senna or Lewis Hamilton, it's him.”

That’s how big MrBeast is. Feted by Premier League legends. It gives you an idea of the magnitude of the audience Formula E can access, but a key now will be if the relationship can be expanded upon too. Will the MrBeast and Formula E love-in have a legacy?

But more so will the rub off and eyeballs gained have a decent conversion rate for future Formula E fans?

That’s where the marketeers and the after sales, for want of a better phrase, come in. 

It’s all about the conversion. That's the bit we don't know yet. That's a bit which ultimately all the fun, shunts and the influencer feastability of Miami this week will be judged upon. Beauty must follow the Beast.