PERSPECTIVES | Chris Gibson and BOXBOX are bringing an F1 engineering mindset to men's personal care

Work in F1 for long enough, and living out of a suitcase becomes second nature. Particularly at this time of year, when the calendar goes intensively long haul for its final months, the bag is never fully unpacked, enjoying its own grand tour of southeast Asia, North and South America, then back to the Middle East.

Nestled somewhere within is a toiletries bag that's undergone its own personal journey: methodical and neat at the start of the year, and then gradually becoming more and more haphazard as the miles accumulate. This isn't a very edifying way to go racing, but soon, we'll have a more satisfying alternative.

Our team has developed many strong partnerships over our five years of operation. Whenever we meet a new partner there's excitement and a gauging of potential. With Chris Gibson, founder and CEO of BOXBOX, there was also a deep-seated sense of empathy: not just because he's a racer, but also because he knows his way around an airport and has had more than his fair share of exploding shampoo bottles. Chris speaks our language, and he's come up with our sort of solution: an engineering-led, scientific approach to optimising toiletries.

Chris is a US-based research scientist, co-founder and former CEO of Recursion, a biotech company using AI to discover new medicines. He's also a GT racer, a family man, and incapable of taking it easy. A 150mph crash in 2021 resulted in compression fractures of his spine, halting his career behind the wheel, but also removing one of his primary methods of switching off from work. He got into mountain climbing and Ironman, but in 2025 decided to step back from his biotech business. He promised himself at least six months away from doing anything 'serious'. BOXBOX started out as more of a side-hustle.

The original idea was to create a better travel case for men's toiletries, populated with better containers. To that end, Chris, and his brother Riley – the expert in leading consumer brands – recruited industrial design consultancy Callum, led by Ian Callum, designer of the mighty Aston Martin DB7 and Vanquish. However, while Chris is interested in the state of his toiletries bag, he's also obsessive about what's inside it. Over the years, he's been very careful about the products he uses, which has led him to pay far more attention to what's inside the bag than would ever be the case with a generic travel kit. It's led to the creation of a very special travel project, that's currently on beta-test.

And who better to put these products through their paces than an F1 team? The grooming standard is high in the paddock, despite – or perhaps, because of – the harshness of the environment. The biggest, toughest mechanics tend to also be the loudest proponents of a practical, efficient personal care regime. A handful of male members in our crew started beta-testing BOXBOX products after Monza, and will continue to do so through this year, ahead of a public launch in 2027. They're currently providing the sort of undiluted feedback that is second nature in a session debrief, but perhaps a little unusual in consumer product testing.

Chris likes it. Because Chris likes the garage environment. We caught up with him to mark our partnership unveiling at the United States Grand Prix. These are his thoughts on the evolution of BOXBOX.

F1 is the right fit for BOXBOX

"It doesn't take people long to realise I'm a massive science nerd. And one of the things that I love about science is that you can't hide from the truth. Looking at an F1 car, for a given set of technical regulations, there is an optimal shape of front wing, there is an optimal shape of brake duct inlet. The team leverages first principles science and engineering approaches to get as close as possible to that perfect form. That takes a lot of hard work. We're trying to do the same thing with men's personal care. It's a first principles science and engineering-based approach, designed to get us as close as possible to the best product that can possibly be delivered.

"The plan originally was to mostly focus on the hardware – but we realised we wouldn't be getting anywhere near perfection if we didn't also work on the formulations themselves. There was a huge gap in the science – and that's what gets me excited.

"It's also why F1 is the right environment for us. The science and engineering that's happening across the paddock is as advanced as anywhere in the world. It's as advanced as space programmes; it's as advanced as some of the most compelling aeronautics."

It's about the science… but it isn't just about the science

"We're deeply excited to be operating in this space, because of the science and the engineering that surrounds the sport, but look around the paddock and you have some of the most fashionable, iconic people in the world, who are also excited about this incredible place. That's important for us, because sometimes, when you only leverage science and engineering, you end up with something that's a bit cold and clinical. Not a problem in biotech; quite a significant problem in the retail environment.

"For us in this endeavour, we also want to use artisanship and craft, to make sure that, while we deliver performance based on the science, we're doing it with style. Doing it in a way that's going to be compelling for folks, and make them love the product. The F1 teams have to build these cars, and all that encompasses from a competitive standpoint, from a design standpoint, from a manufacturing standpoint, from a logistics standpoint. And at the end of the day, when it goes on track, or on display, it also has to look amazing.

"There's a huge amount of work required to bring it alive like that, and for us, it feels like we're on a mini version of that quest. The parallels are really, really robust. And that's why we wanted to have partnership here: we know we'll be working with like-minded people."

Aston Martin's allure

"We spoke to a number of teams at the Miami Grand Prix – seven in all – and felt privileged to have that opportunity. We were looking for a partner brand that had to do a few different things. The first was to see our potential as a startup. Beyond that, we wanted to work with a brand that had that incredible allure of performance, luxury and science. Aston Martin hit that better than anyone. It was a brand we wanted to be associated with, and it has a brand universe of other partners we wanted to be associated with.

"Ultimately, I want to build a brand that is important and impactful for folks. I can't think of a better way to accelerate that brand than work with an entity like Aston Martin. Where else in the world do performance, science and luxury come together at this elite level?

"Given what we're trying to do – which is improve and re-engineer men's health – bringing together both form, formulation and function, you have to be willing to go to the place where you're going to be measured against the highest bar. For us, that's how we accelerate the growth of the brand.

"The other attraction of Aston Martin was in the willingness of the team to not only put the logo on the car – which is very cool and very exciting – but also put our products into the hands of real team members, who are always on the road, and in the best possible place to give us genuine, honest feedback. They'll be from a variety of backgrounds, but they'll care about quality, about performance, about luxury and functionality. Their feedback on what features of a personal care product really matter to them, will inform what we do.

"Certainly, the drivers and management are important, but we really wanted to focus on the pit crew and people working behind the scenes, who travel back and forth to every race, but aren't necessarily in front of the TV cameras. They’re going to give us great feedback – but they also represent the kind of customer that we're going after."

Our test subjects

"The feedback we've had so far has been really, really good. We had to impress on the team members trying our products that despite being a team partner – who they would usually be encouraged to be gracious towards – we want feedback that is as raw as possible.

"We gave a first set of products to the team at Monza, and there's another design iteration that'll go to team members in Austin. It's going to be interesting to see the trajectory. The team members that have the original kit will be able to see a huge step forward, including some of the things developed from feedback they've shared with us. Hopefully they'll like the evolution, and the way we've dealt with issues – or perhaps they'll want us to try again.

"On the other hand, we'll have team members seeing it fresh for the first time, and giving us their initial impressions. We're excited by the contrast. Hopefully we'll reach a point where we have team members asking when the product will be ready for sale, and how they can get hold of it. That'll be the signal to us that we're starting get to a product that really matters to folks."

The right place, at the right time

"There are moments in careers where the right things come together. A good example of that is I was studying the combination of biology and computer science in the early 2010s. I was a graduate student and turned my thesis into a job. I built a company leveraging AI to discover medicines, which nobody else was doing at that time. A lot of people in 2013 thought we were crazy, but it ended up being an important trend and there's now hundreds of companies building in that space. Something I take forward in my career, and like to see in the people I work with, is the ability to identify the front side of waves, as opposed to following along on the third set. I think the front side is where the most learning happens, where the most fun happens, and where the biggest impact is.

"This is the right time to be involved in F1. The commercial explosion of F1 is real. It's opening the sport up to the world. It has recently achieved ubiquity across culture in the US. There was a time when I could say I was planning to watch the F1 race at the weekend and receive only puzzled looks.

"As for men's personal care, that's been a journey for me, as I think it has been for a lot of people. I think for men in general there is an openness now to matching the hard, rugged side, with a caring vulnerable side, in a way that didn't exist 20, and perhaps even 10 years ago. It's become normal.

"Taking care of your skin and taking care of your health are things men have always considered – but not in the mainstream way it is right now. We haven't seen those pieces coalesce into a men's personal care brand, really going after F1. This is why, for us, the moment is now. We wanted to be the first pit stop partner in this space; we wanted to develop our product within the context of F1. Two years ago would have been too early. We'll see how it goes but my guess is that two years from now would be too late. Hopefully, we've nailed it."

The next steps

"We're going to keep iterating with the team through the rest of this season and probably into the start of next season. We'll be in Austin, in Las Vegas and probably a few other places. We plan to launch a founder series at the Australian Grand Prix next year, as a bespoke drop going out to a very small cohort of people – working with the team to deliver these in the paddock and maybe to a small set of Aston Martin partners. After this, we have our big North American launch planned for the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May.

"We have a lot of work to do before then. We're going to leave as much time for feedback as we can, and have a really short window for production. That will be interesting for supply chain logistics and manufacturing. We're basically like a duck at the moment: swimming along, looking calm on the surface – but underneath paddling like crazy.

"We've gotten off to an incredible start, and our trajectory looks good. We're really focused on North America for our initial launch and we'll be spending a lot of time with the team, focused on races in the US. We'd hope to do a global launch the following year – which is another reason why F1 is a compelling place for us to be. It can reach the most significant markets anywhere in the world, moving fluidly between those different countries where you hope to build a customer base. There aren't many partnership opportunities where that would be the case."

Follow the development and share your personal care challenges at boxbox.com.

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