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Archer brought an aircraft with twelve propellers to the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin. Six tilt forward for cruise. The whole thing is designed to rise off a pad on battery power and carry a pilot and four passengers. It’s cool as hell. I’d have stopped to look at it if I were at the GP, which is already one thing Formula 1 gets out of this deal.
On November 12, F1 made Archer an Official Supporter in a multi-year deal. Archer says it will display Midnight in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. The two companies will also explore dedicated pickup and drop-off points at circuits and putting flights into F1 ticket and hospitality packages. Any service needs regulatory approval.
I do really believe that F1 wants the trip to the circuit to become part of the Grand Prix. It’s all part of the show. A week before the Archer news, the people who run F1’s own race in Las Vegas also signed robotaxi company Zoox to a deal.
The Grand Prix Plaza
In 2024, Williams signed Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi company, and put its name on the cars for U.S. races. Zoox also brought a robotaxi to the team’s fan zone at New York-New York. You could go see the car before the company was carrying the public in Las Vegas. Zoox opened public rides around the Strip in September 2025 and now serves Harry Reid International Airport. It’s back at the Williams fan zone this year, where the team is inviting visitors to step inside.
On November 5, Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc. announced its own deal with Amazon’s Zoox. It includes a plan for a dedicated pickup and drop-off zone at Grand Prix Plaza in 2027. The Plaza is the home of the race and a permanent F1 attraction, with karts and simulators you can visit outside race week. Visitors could choose Grand Prix Plaza the way they choose a hotel or the airport in the Zoox app.
Emily Prazer runs both F1’s commercial business and the Las Vegas Grand Prix. In Vegas, Formula 1 is also the promoter. It runs the event and earns the ticket revenue directly. Its race guide already tells Paddock Club guests where to catch a shuttle at the Aria or Caesars Palace. F1 Experiences already offers hotel stays with circuit transfers at selected races. What Zoox adds in Vegas is a ride people might try for its own sake. With Archer, F1 is exploring an airport pickup that could have the same appeal.
Austin shows how that could work. Blade sold helicopter seats from Creedmoor to Circuit of the Americas during the race weekend. Joby Aviation, which owns Blade’s passenger business, says the seats sold out.
Archer has proposed a different trip, from Austin-Bergstrom or Austin Executive Airport to the circuit’s existing helipad. For someone flying in for the race, the attraction is pretty easy to understand. Get off one aircraft, get on another, and skip the drive to COTA. With four passenger seats, Midnight is best understood as a premium transfer.
Don’t worry, Ubers and buses still have plenty of work to do.
Archer has made a similar pitch to another sports organizer. In May 2025, LA28 named it the official air taxi provider for the Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympics. The plan includes trips to venues such as the Coliseum and the stadium in Inglewood.
A Grand Prix gives Archer another setting where the case for the aircraft fits: a single trip from an airport to a venue.
While it looks and sounds incredible for the elite few who get to skip the traffic, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. (read that in a Rocky Balboa voice)
Archer has built Midnight and flown it with a pilot aboard, including flights out of Oakland International Airport. Its new FAA clearance in Los Angeles covers experimental flights using a runway. Archer demonstrated a full transition from vertical takeoff to forward flight by remote control in 2024. As of November 9, it was still targeting the end of this year to do it with a pilot aboard. When Archer unveiled Midnight in 2022, it was aiming to have the aircraft certified in late 2024 and launch its network in 2025. In the latest earnings call, CEO Adam Goldstein said he plans to be Midnight’s first passenger in 2027.
How the Partnership Translates to Racing
F1 has a reason to care about electrification.
Under the 2026 rules, the electric side of the hybrid power unit is capped at 350 kilowatts. As laid out in the BoS guide to the new cars, how teams recover that energy and where drivers can use it changes how they race. That work gives a manufacturer like Ford a reason to come back to F1.
Jim Farley tied the return to where he wanted Ford’s road cars to go, with more electric power and software. Ford engineer Kevin Ruybal adapted a tool from his production-hybrid work so Red Bull Ford Powertrains could simulate how its race power unit would respond before the hardware existed.
The exchange can run between racing and aviation, too.
Horizon Aircraft hired Motion Applied, formerly McLaren Applied, to design and build an inverter for its Cavorite X7 aircraft. That’s the box that converts battery power into the form the lift motors use. The company hired engineers with motorsport experience to get power to the motors without adding unnecessary weight. Archer’s F1 announcement names displays and potential passenger flights.
Autonomy has its own place in motorsport, too.
Last year six driverless cars raced in the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League final at Yas Marina, the same circuit where Archer says it will bring Midnight in December. The league uses cars derived from Super Formula. Teams compete on the software that lets those cars see the track and race one another. Formula 1’s sporting rules require the driver to drive alone and unaided. A Grand Prix can make room for both. You could spend the afternoon watching the best drivers in the world and take a car with no steering wheel back to the hotel.
Last year in Vegas, I spoke with Scott Jacka from T-Mobile about keeping the ticket scanners connected as fans arrived. That was technology you wanted to forget about because the point was to keep the line moving. Midnight is the kind you’d tell somebody about before you made it through the gate.
Here’s to hoping I get to ride in one and avoid that Strip traffic.
Business of Speed covers the business, technology, and lifestyle of racing: Formula 1, IndyCar, IMSA, WEC, NASCAR, and more. From Vincenzo Landino, entrepreneur and creator, featured in Bloomberg, TBPN, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, Adweek, and Front Office Sports. You can find us on Instagram, Substack, and LinkedIn.
