Formula 1: Oura CEO talks new Red Bull partnership

The Red Bull Formula 1 team and Oura Rings have formed an exciting new partnership, and we had the chance to speak with Oura Health CEO Harpreet Singh Rai about the deal.

In addition to partnerships with with the NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, UFC, and the MLB’s Seattle Mariners, Oura Rings has also recently announced a new partnership with the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team to become their first ever “Official Health Technology” partner.

The goal of this partnership is for Oura to provide members of the Milton Keynes-based team with rings to optimize their health and performance during races.

These rings track all stages of sleep and account for daily activity in order to provide insights on sleep and its impact on overall health as well as practical steps for long-term improvement.

We recently had the chance to speak with Oura Health CEO Harpreet Singh Rai about this partnership with the Red Bull Formula 1 team.

Asher Fair, Beyond the Flag (BTF): Tell me about some of your existing partnerships with the NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, UFC and the Seattle Mariners. How did those get started and how are you able to use them to continue to grow? If you could give any specifics about NASCAR, that would be great, as I also cover NASCAR full-time in addition to Formula 1 and we have many NASCAR readers at Beyond the Flag.

Harpreet Singh Rai: In response to COVID-19, Oura donated thousands of rings to frontline healthcare workers. Oura Rings were also used in TemPredict, a study at UCSF, which 65,000 people participated in, including Oura users. Separately, rings were used in a self-funded study at West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI).

Building on COVID research, Oura developed its Health Risk Management (HRM) enterprise platform to help organizations safely bring people back to work. HRM helps organizations monitor health risk in their populations, using signals from the Oura Ring.

After rigorous vetting of wearable technologies, Oura and the HRM platform is currently being used in partnerships with the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and sports leagues including the NBA, WNBA, UFC, and NASCAR, Seattle Mariners, and now the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing team to support safe reopenings and better health among employee populations, as well as help athletes optimize their health and performance during competition.

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Oura entered a multi-year partnership to become the Official Health Technology Partner of NASCAR. After rigorous vetting by NASCAR, Oura emerged as an accurate and efficient solution to advance the organization’s approach to health and wellness.

As part of the agreement, NASCAR Cup Series drivers and key operational employees across the sanctioning body were provided an Oura Ring, which delivers personalized readiness, activity, and sleep insights to provide a holistic picture of a person’s health. While the long term plan for NASCAR is to use Oura for performance optimization for their drivers and organization, Oura’s HRM platform also supports NASCAR’s COVID safety protocols.

John Bobo, NASCAR’s Vice President of Racing Operations, shared this back in September. “We love that Oura can potentially alert competitors that they are becoming ill days before they might detect symptoms. It’s not meant to be diagnostic but an early warning system. It’s telling someone they should isolate, seek medical care, or get a COVID-19 test,” Bobo says. “What a person should do depends on their unique situation and health. That’s why this partnership is a win for everyone. Quality data creates actionable data, and Oura gives us that edge.”

If interested, you can read more about our NASCAR partnership in our blog here.

BTF: Are there specific teams/athletes/drivers you work with in the NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, UFC (such as the Seattle Mariners are your MLB team), or are those partnerships for the entire leagues?

Rai: Our partnership is for the entire leagues with NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, and UFC. While they are league-level, we do have athletes who have long been avid users of Oura and are particular fans, including Kevin Love and Manu Ginobili from the NBA, as well as Seattle Mariners outfielder Mitch Haniger and former UFC fighter Daniel Cormier.

BTF: What led to the partnership/relationship with Red Bull Racing getting started?

Rai: Red Bull Racing has been testing/vetting Oura for about a year. After going through this rigorous process, Red Bull reached back out to Oura to discuss scaling the program. Their goals are to optimize performance through sleep and recovery among all the stakeholders on their racing team.

BTF: Are you looking to expand that within Formula 1 now as well?

Rai: People are using Oura Rings across all sports and leagues. We are focused right now on delivering the best experience to our partners at Red Bull Racing.

BTF: Oura Rings will help the team and staff reach peak cognitive and physical performance during races. Does this include the drivers while they’re competing behind the wheel?

Rai: Yes. We believe Oura’s personalized insights offer a holistic picture of a driver’s health. Oura can play an essential role in helping drivers prioritize the impact that sleep has on mental clarity, reaction time, and peak physical performance.

A tenth of a second can make a big difference to a driver, especially when it comes to the qualifying position, which is incredibly important ahead of the race. During the race, it can be a split-second decision to make an overtaking maneuver or mean the difference between getting out ahead of another car in a pit stop. This is why it’s essential for drivers and the pit crew to be at the top of their game.

BTF: Does this include the drivers and team members while they are away from the track?

Rai: Yes, Oura Rings will be used by people across the Red Bull Racing organization, including drivers, pit stop crew, and key staff at the racing factory.

BTF: Can you get into any details on how the Oura Rings work and why they are ideal for potential consumers?

Rai: Oura exists to empower people to better understand their health by arming them with accurate and personalized physiological insights that guide them to live healthier, more fulfilled lives. Oura has a ring form factor that is designed for optimal accuracy by measuring from the arteries of your finger where there is a stronger pulse signal, instead of measuring at the back of your wrist. Oura is also one of the only wearables that measures your body temperature directly from your skin.

The Oura Ring is comfortable to wear and captures a precise level of data. It provides personalized insights to help people to understand their body and improve their sleep and recovery. Anyone can benefit from an Oura Ring since the data is directly connected to a personal baseline.

BTF: Have you seen growing interest in Oura Rings during this COVID-19 pandemic, given that this is clearly a timely deployment with health at the forefront of the minds of most across the globe?

Rai: We’ve always been focused on helping people improve overall health, but this has certainly taken on a whole new meaning during the pandemic. We believe in empowering people with their health data, and right now, this has become more important than ever.

Most teams and leagues use Oura for performance optimization. In the short term, Oura can provide insights to potential flu-like illnesses – research is showing Oura may be able to see someone is getting sick ahead of time, which can help with stopping the spread.

This could help with keeping professional organizations, teams, and offices more safe. However, most teams are looking forward to the long-term impact of using Oura in optimizing their team’s performance.

Additional information about this partnership, including quotes from Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, and a background of Oura are available here.