Sometimes being a brand ambassador in Formula One can really suck, but there are exceptions, especially when you’re a Red Bull Racing driver sponsored by Infiniti.
During Sebastian Vettel’s visit to the proposed New Jersey F1 Circuit in June, he stopped off in downtown New York to join Double Grammy-winning US R&B star Melanie Fiona as she filmed her latest music video.
The video for Fiona’s track ‘Watch Me Work’, from the album ‘The MF Life’, sees Vettel play a modern day James Dean character searching to find an underground location for Fiona and her band to perform. Vettel drives the singer to a deserted warehouse in a red Infiniti G37 convertible, where he tests out the sound and lighting before being satisfied that his work is done.
Despite the high-energy rhythm of the piece, Vettel refrains from showing us his moves, but nonetheless wears a permanent smirk on his face while nodding his head in several scenes.
Commenting on the video, Sebastian Vettel said: “It was a great experience to shoot a music video, and certainly very different to what I’m used to. But music is without question an inspiration to many and I’m very proud to have been part of this. I think the lyrics are quite fitting to what we can all do if we put our mind to it.”
The video is the latest in the ‘Infiniti Inspired Performers’ series, which sees Red Bull Racing drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber collaborating with other top performers in different disciplines.
As the video ends, Vettel’s character departs the scene and is seen driving into the Manhattan sunrise in his G37, no doubt pondering the lyrics of Fiona’s track ‘Watch Me Work’, while looking forward to this weekend’s grand prix in Spa Franchorchamps.. (yeah, right)
Canadian-born Melanie Fiona is no stranger to the marque – her family have owned Infiniti cars for years – so was delighted by the opportunity to work with the brand and the Double Formula One World Champion.
“It’s not often you get the chance to be driven by an F1 World Champion and when the opportunity came up to have Seb driving me in the video I was like, yes please! This is one of my favourite songs and one that I’ve been wanting to put out for a while so to have him involved was great,” said Fiona.
As an extra bonus, the 25 year-old German driver gave the R&B star a high-speed passenger lap of the New Jersey circuit, although Fiona had to make do with the G37 rather than his F1 race car.
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It’s a shame they didn’t integrate some footage of his day job. Crossover-collaborations can be a good way of introducing product and brands to wider markets . . . but then again . . . (as Swizz Beatz springs to mind!)
I know the team who produced this video and can tell you that it was made for Infiniti, so it was never likely to feature anything from Red Bull Racing.
I suspect this will work pretty well for Infiniti, with or withoutt Swizz Beatz.. 🙂